The Hero Of Aneth
by Clare
Summary: The Fourth Doctor and Adric visit the planet Aneth, where the Doctor meets up with his old friends, Seth and Teka. However, the arrival of an even older enemy means this will not be a peaceful reunion.
1. Prologue

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Prologue

They had left Aneth amid the tears of those who never expected to see them again, handed over to the warlike Skonnons as part of a terrible "Pact". Now, however, they were returning home in triumph, the Pact with Skonnos finally ended, their people finally free. And it was all because of Seth, Teka thought to herself as she sat beside him at the controls; he had defeated the Nimon, just as she had always known he would. She owed him her life, as did all the young Anethans who would otherwise have become the Nimon's latest victims.

The planets of Aneth and Skonnos had a long and troubled history. Long ago, the Skonnons had conquered Aneth, only for their Empire to collapse following a devastating war on Skonnos. For a while after that, the Anethans had enjoyed a life free from fear - until the day a patrol from Skonnos arrived and demanded the surrender of seven hymetusite crystals and seven teenagers. These were to serve as a "tribute" to the Nimon, a powerful horned creature which had arrived on Skonnos not long after the war ended. Threatened with being reinvaded if they did not comply, the Anethans had reluctantly done as they had been ordered. But the Skonnons had returned the next year and every subsequent year, each time demanding the same thing.

Over the years, many heartbroken Anethan parents had pleaded with their ruler, King Aigus, to save their sons and daughters. But Aigus was powerless; not even he dared stand up to the might of the Skonnon Empire, which, though a shadow of its former self, was still feared throughout Aneth. And, on the Skonnons' most recent visit, he had even been forced to surrender Teka, the young girl he had adopted as his heir since his wife had failed to produce any children. But he had recently learned that he had a son, Seth, by one of his many mistresses and had decided to send the youth to Skonnos on a mission to destroy the Nimon, including him in the tribute to avoid arousing the Skonnons' suspicions. This, he knew, was the only way the Anethans could ever be free of the Pact.

Now, returning home to Aneth aboard a commandeered Skonnon spacecraft, Seth glanced across at Teka. She believed he was a hero, as did all the other youngsters who had been part of this final tribute, but the truth was that he was nothing of the kind. He had never wanted to be a hero; that was a role forced upon him by circumstance. And he was not really Aigus's son, any more than Teka was the king's daughter.

"We're nearly home, Seth," Teka said, her words cutting through Seth's thoughts. "And just think - you're the one who saved us all!" She gestured towards the other young Anethans, three girls (Dia, Arlu and Panne) and two boys (Vando and Sedus), who had also been shipped to Skonnos as part of the Pact.

Seth was very fond of Teka, but she did seem to expect rather a lot from him; the way she spoke, anyone would think he had single-handedly defeated the Nimons. Nimons, plural - it had turned out that the Nimon on Skonnos was the spearhead for the latest planetary conquest by this race of parasitic nomads. No-one knew where the Nimons had originally come from, but, via hyperspace technology, they had roamed from planet to planet, bleeding each one dry before moving on to the next. And Teka believed that he, an ordinary teenaged boy, had been the one who had put a stop to all that.

"I think you'll find the Doctor and Romana helped a little," he told her. The Doctor and Romana were two Time Lords who had crashed their TARDIS into the ship which had been taking the Anethans to Skonnos. And it had been with their help that the Nimons had been defeated, most of them being trapped on Crinoth (the planet they had targeted before Skonnos) while those already on Skonnos were killed when the Complex which had housed the original Nimon was destroyed. If it hadn't done so already, Crinoth would shortly explode, taking all the Nimons with it.

"Maybe," Teka admitted. "But your father's got a welcoming party organised in _your_ honour."

Seth sighed. He had agreed to join the transport to Skonnos because Aigus had convinced their people that he was the only one who could free them from the Pact, which had already resulted in many young people being sent to Skonnos, never to return. But he had had doubts about the mission from the start - after all, if none of the others who had been offered as tribute had ever returned, what hope did he have? Especially since no-one on Aneth really knew what the Nimon was like, or even how powerful it was. The only Anethans ever to get close enough to find out were those sent to Skonnos under the terms of the Pact and they were all dead, their bodies having provided sustenance for the Nimon.

Though Seth had to admit that he had helped to defeat the Nimons, as well as the Skonnons' power-hungry leader, Soldeed, he felt Teka was giving him more credit than he deserved. He was just a normal boy who had had the status of hero thrust upon him. And the fact that he had been involved in bringing down the Nimons would only add to that reputation, a reputation he would now have to spend the rest of his life trying to live up to.

Soon, a planet appeared on the viewscreen, a planet none of those on board the Skonnon craft had ever expected to see again. "Look, Seth!" Teka called, pointing to the screen, her voice filled with excitement. "That's Aneth! We've made it!"

Hearing her voice, Dia, Arlu, Panne, Vando and Sedus crowded round to see for themselves. Soon, they too were exclaiming happily over the thought of seeing their families again and even Seth, the reluctant hero, felt a small surge of excitement. But the mood was broken as a thought suddenly occured to Dia. "Wait a moment," she said. "We're in a Skonnon ship."

"So?" asked Teka.

"Well, don't you think we'd better radio ahead? We don't want to start a panic." Dia's fears were well founded; if a Skonnon craft showed up on the Anethan radar system at a time when no transport to collect the annual tribute was due, the people might fear it heralded an invasion. Though this particular ship had been painted white to make it seem less threatening, that would not show up on radar and it would appear no different from any other ship from Skonnos.

Teka nodded and pressed the switch which activated the ship's communication system. "This is Teka calling Aneth Space Control," she said into the microphone. "Seth's done it! He's defeated the Nimon! He's the hero of Aneth!"

_"Message acknowledged. Where are you?"_ Even though this message was from a girl no-one had expected to hear from again, the man at the command post gave the standard response.

"I'm in a Skonnon spacecraft - one that's been painted white," Teka added to clarify. "Seth and the others are with me. Tell my guardian . . . Tell King Aigus we're coming home."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

A whooshing sound few people could adequately describe in words rent the air as a large blue box materialised, appearing as if out of thin air. Outwardly, it resembled a police box from 20th Century Earth, but that was merely a disguise to conceal its true nature. In theory, it should have been able to change its appearance to blend in with wherever it landed, but it had been stuck in its "police box" form for some time. And that often made it stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, as was the case right now, standing as it did in the grounds of a palace on a planet many light years from Earth.

Moments after the box had materialised, the doors opened and two dark-haired male humanoids emerged. The taller of the two had hair which curled wildly and a rather prominent nose. Aside from his shirt, he was dressed entirely in burgundy, including a scarf so long that the ends almost reached the ground. He draped one end of the scarf over his shoulder, before locking the door to the box and turning to his companion.

The second occupant of the blue box was much younger - though most would have underestimated the age gap between him and the man with the scarf - a mere boy. There was a slightly impish look to his features and the most distinctive aspect of his clothing was his yellow shirt, on which he wore a star-shaped badge. A hand-woven belt had been tied around his waist. He regarded his surroundings with frank curiosity of the sort generally displayed by young children or those encountering something for the first time. Indeed, coming as he did from another universe, all of this was new to him. He was the first of the pair to speak. "It's not quite how you described it."

"What isn't?"

"Gallifrey," the boy replied, turning his gaze in the direction of the palace.

The man smiled at his companion. "Ah, you've noticed, have you? Well, that would be because we're not on Gallifrey." He turned and headed in the direction of the palace. "Come on, Adric."

* * *

As he followed his friend, a question occured to Adric. Questions often occured to him, mainly concerning topics related to mathematics, a subject which had fascinated him for as long as he could remember. This question, however, was about something entirely different. "Doctor, if we're not on Gallifrey, where are we?"

The Doctor had been expecting this question. He was supposed to be heading back to Gallifrey, the home planet of the Time Lords, in response to a summons, but there were several reasons why he was wary of facing his people right now. Chief among those reasons was Romana, the Time Lady he was supposed to have returned to Gallifrey when he received the summons. Instead, the TARDIS had fallen through a void in space and ended up in a parallel universe called E-Space. The Doctor had met Adric not long after and the boy had later stowed away on the TARDIS, which was where he had been when the Doctor finally found the way out of E-Space. But Romana had chosen to stay behind to help free a race of time-sensitives called Tharils from slavery and the Doctor had left his robot dog, K-9, with her. However, in doing so, she had broken a fundamental law of Gallifreyan society, which stated that no Time Lord should interfere in the affairs of other peoples and planets. An exception to this rule might be made under certain circumstances, but these were rare and most Time Lords believed it was their duty simply to observe. The Doctor knew that, if he returned to Gallifrey without Romana, he would have a great deal of explaining to do, especially when it emerged that she had become involved in the affairs of another race - and his own record wasn't exactly clean.

"Adric," he said, backtracking slightly and resting his hand on the boy's shoulder, "a straight line may be the quickest way of getting from one place to another, but it isn't the most interesting."

Adric frowned; there were times when he wished the Doctor wouldn't talk in riddles like this. He had asked a straightforward question about where they were and he had expected a straightforward answer. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing," the Doctor replied. "Just thought we'd take a little detour." He did not want to admit that he was procrastinating, trying to put off returning to Gallifrey for as long as possible. "We'll go to Gallifrey another day," he added. "Come on." But he had no way of knowing that, though he himself would eventually get back to Gallifrey, Adric would never set foot on the home planet of the Time Lords.

"Then, where are we?" Adric asked, looking at the Doctor in a way which said he wanted a straight answer this time.

"Aneth," the Doctor told him. Not that it would mean anything to Adric; this was only the second planet the boy had visited since arriving in N-Space. "Charming planet. I've been here before . . . well, later." Rather than simply being a spaceship, the TARDIS was also a time machine; though the Doctor had visited Aneth in his own past, the visit had taken place in the planet's future. At that time, he and his granddaughter, Susan, had attended a banquet in the same palace towards which he and Adric were now heading. Back then, however, he was still in his first incarnation and the TARDIS's Chameleon Circuit (the mechanism which enabled it to change its appearance) was still working. On that occasion, the TARDIS had taken on the form of a marble fountain . . . The Doctor looked back at the "police box" standing incongruously in the grounds of the palace and frowned. Maybe, it was high time he got the Chameleon Circuit fixed.

In the meantime, he and Adric headed towards the palace. After the events on Traken, which had seen him thwart the Master's plan to seize control of the peaceful planet, the Doctor was hoping the two of them might be able to spend a few days relaxing. And, with the threat from the Skonnons removed, Aneth seemed the most likely option. Among other things, it would give him a chance to see how his old friends, Seth and Teka, were getting on; when he'd met them, they had both been close to Adric's age, but he had no way of knowing how much time had passed on Aneth since then.

* * *

"Halt! Who goes there?!"

The Doctor and Adric found their passage blocked by a tall fair-haired man, who was pointing a blaster gun directly at Adric. Not wanting to show that he was afraid, in spite of the fact that he was staring down the barrel of a gun, the boy turned to the Doctor, silently telling him that he could do the talking.

Taking his cue, the Doctor placed his hand over the gun, gently pushing it down. "You could hurt someone with that, you know," he said to the Anethan man, who was obviously a palace guard. The Doctor, despite his habit of attracting trouble, generally prefered to solve problems without resorting to the use of weapons, which had been a regular bone of contention between himself and the Brigadier while he was working for UNIT. "Now," he went on, "be a good chap and take us to your leader."

"King Aigus is ill. I was given explicit instructions to keep all visitors away." A stubborn look settled across the guard's face, a look the Doctor had seen many times on faces belonging to members of many different races.

"What? Even though we're old friends of the king's son?" Then, catching Adric's eye, the Doctor hurriedly added: "At least I am. I once helped him to defeat the Nimon - or haven't you heard? I should have thought the story would have been all over Aneth." As he spoke, the Doctor recalled how he and Romana had discussed the legends Teka was likely to build up around Seth when they and the other young Anethans the two Time Lords had freed from captivity returned home. "Never mind," he said finally. "Are you going to let us in or not?"

The guard looked as though he was going to say something in reply, but, before he could do so, another voice spoke from inside the palace. "Let them in, Rilph." The speaker was an older male and his tone carried an air of authority of the sort which came from years of practice. Though the Doctor had never met him face-to-face, he knew immediately that this had to be King Aigus. Telling Adric to stay close to him, he followed the guard, Rilph, into the palace.

* * *

King Aigus had ruled Aneth for many years, right through the dark period when his people were being forced to hand seven of their youngsters over to the Skonnons each year. Now, those days were safely behind him, but the years were beginning to catch up with him. But he was determined to rule for as long as he could and had ordered his bed brought down to his throne room. Right now, he was reclining on cushions, surrounded by his family. His wife sat close beside him, while Seth (the young man Aigus wrongly believed to be his son) stood nearby with the king's adopted heir, Teka. A baby girl, not quite a year old, wriggled in the latter's arms until she was put down on the floor, where she promptly crawled towards the door.

Moments later, the child was carried back into the room in the arms of a tall man with wildly curling hair. A young boy with black hair and brown eyes walked beside him and Rilph, the Captain of the Palace Guard, was escorting the pair. Approaching the bed where Aigus lay, he saluted smartly and stood to attention. "Visitors, Your Majesty," he said. "This one claims he knows your son." He nodded towards the Doctor, who was currently trying to fend off attempts by the infant in his arms to grab handfuls of his hair.

"Is this true?" asked the king, addressing the Doctor. However, it was Seth who answered.

"Yes, we met on the transport to Skonnos." As he spoke, Seth walked towards the Doctor and took the baby out of his arms. This gave the Doctor a chance to look at Seth closely, enabling him to make a rough guess at how much time had passed since the events on Skonnos. Seth looked a little older, perhaps by five years; the boy the Doctor and Romana had met was now a young man. And that young man was presently joined by a young dark-haired woman, who regarded the Doctor closely. He, meanwhile, found himself looking from the woman (a slightly older version of Teka, he realised) to the baby and back again. There was a definite resemblence between the two . . .

The Doctor looked at Teka questioningly. "Our daughter, Sopea," she told him, pronouncing the last word _So-pay-a_ and nodding towards Seth as she spoke. "Seth and I are married now," she added, taking the baby in her arms and holding her close.

"Clearly I will have to accept that you are known to my son," Aigus said at length. "However, I still don't know who you are."

"More to the point, who are any of us?" said the Doctor, who never revealed his true identity to anyone, not even his own travelling companions. He sometimes adopted aliases, but he kept his real name a closely guarded secret.

"He's called the Doctor," said Adric, who had not spoken until now. At the sound of the Alzarian's voice, Aigus turned in his direction. The boy, the king noted, was a humanoid like the Anethans, though his style of clothing was unusual, making it difficult to place his planet of origin.

"In that case, it's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor," said Aigus, smiling slightly. "But who is your young friend?" he added, nodding in Adric's direction.

"Oh, a lad who stowed away on my TARDIS once," the Doctor replied. "Tall blue box, light on top," he elaborated for the benefit of Aigus and the older woman who sat beside the king's bed. Aside from Sopea, who was too young to talk, she was the only person in the room who hadn't yet said anything. However, she had the regal bearing that told anyone who looked at her that she was a queen, at least by marriage.

"And does he have a name?" was Aigus's next question.

"Yes, he's called Adric."

"In that case," Aigus said, addressing the young Alzarian, "welcome to Aneth, Adric. I can think of several more questions I'd like to ask you, but I feel we should continue our conversation over a good meal, if you and the Doctor would care to join us."

"We'd be delighted," said the Doctor. "Wouldn't we, Adric?"

* * *

Within minutes, the small group of humanoids was seated around a table. Two servants had carried Aigus into the room and placed him in the seat at the head of the table. His wife, whose name was presently revealed to be Meridda, took the seat on Aigus's right, with the Doctor directly opposite her. Adric, sitting next to the Doctor, was already helping himself to food from the serving plates nearest to him. Seth was opposite Adric and Teka sat beside the young Anethan man, holding Sopea on her lap. This, Aigus explained, was the room he used for informal meals with just his family and possibly one or two guests. "There is a banqueting hall, of course," he said. "But we keep that for formal occasions."

"The last time we used it was for Seth and Teka's wedding," added Meridda. "Aigus doesn't do much large-scale entertaining, especially now that he's getting older." She helped herself to a slice of cold meat from one of the serving plates. Meals on Aneth were generally informal affairs, even among the planet's Royal Family; rather than having set courses, diners were presented with a variety of dishes from which to choose. Meridda then turned to Adric and decided to try and engage him in conversation. "And where are you from, young man?"

Adric mumbled a reply through a mouthful of cheese, then, following a nudge from the Doctor, he remembered his manners and swallowed the cheese before attempting to speak again. "Alzarius."

"Alzarius?" echoed Meridda, frowning as though she was trying to remember something. "No, I've never heard of that planet."

"Well, you wouldn't have," the Doctor cut in. "Adric isn't from this universe." After all, he recalled, he hadn't heard of Alzarius either until the TARDIS fell through the CVE and materialised on the planet. In answer to further questions, he explained how he had helped Adric's people to leave Alzarius and go in search of a new home, before he and Romana left on their own quest - to find a way out of E-Space. Adric, meanwhile, had stowed away on the TARDIS, though the Doctor and Romana had not found out about this until later.

"But where is Romana?" asked Teka.

"Still in E-Space," replied the Doctor, before recounting the story of Rorvik's ship and the Gateway. He still missed Romana; she had been the first member of his own race to travel with him since he had left Susan on Earth in the 22nd Century, a world just beginning to rise from the ashes of a Dalek invasion. But he shook his head and added: "Still, it was her choice. We've got to look to the future now." He turned to Adric, who caught his eye and grinned.

The rest of the meal continued in much the same manner. The Doctor told the Anethans about a few of his other adventures, some of which were new to Adric as well. Then, during a lull in the conversation, Aigus called for a servant and ordered him to send up some wine. "Oh, and fruit juice for the Doctor's young friend," he added, turning to the Doctor for confirmation.

The Doctor nodded. Alzarians had an innate ability to recover rapidly and should, in theory, have a higher level of alcohol tolerance than most other humanoid races. But, with Adric not yet fully mature, he did not want to take chances.

* * *

While they were waiting for the drinks, Teka began to recount the story of the Nimon and how Seth had been sent to destroy it. "I was so afraid when I learned I was to be sent to Skonnos; I knew it meant I would never see Aneth again," she explained. "But, when Aigus said he was sending Seth as well . . ."

"Teka, please," Seth said, cutting his wife off in mid-sentence. "We all know that story."

"Adric doesn't," Teka reminded him, passing Sopea to Meridda. She turned to the young Alzarian and directed her words towards him. ". . . I wasn't afraid anymore. I knew Seth would protect me and he would defeat the Nimon."

"What's the Nimon?" asked Adric, who had never heard of the powerful horned creatures before.

"Oh, just your average planet-scavenging race," the Doctor replied. "Or, rather, they were." He recalled how he and Romana had trapped the Nimons on the doomed planet Crinoth, a world the Nimons had drained of all its resources. And, had it not been for the two Time Lords, Skonnos and countless other planets would have suffered the same fate as Crinoth, plundered of everything of value, all native life-forms wiped out in the name of what the Nimons had ironically called the Great Journey of Life. There were only two words that could sum up the extinction of the Nimons: good riddance.

But Teka was unaware of this. She had been in suspended animation during the defeat of the Nimons, as had all the young Anethans except Seth, awaiting the time when they would have the life-force sucked out of them and end up as dried husks. "And Seth defeated them," she added. "He's the hero of Aneth."

Seth, however, had heard enough. Ever since he and the others returned from Skonnos, people had treated him more like a hero than ever, when all he wanted was to live a normal life. He recalled the praise that had been heaped upon him by the families of the other youngsters in the final tribute, praise he felt he did not deserve. There were times he almost wished he and the others had gone the same way as those who had been sent to Skonnos in previous years . . . Without a word to anyone, he got up and walked out of the room.

"Seth!" Teka called after him. But he paid her no heed.

* * *

Seth made his way out into the palace grounds, wanting to be alone with his thoughts. Everyone thought he was a hero, but he was just an ordinary Anethan man who had sometimes chanced to be around when things happened. All he wanted was to live a quiet life - or as quiet a life as possible when he was married to the king's adopted heir - but it seemed he was unable to escape his reputation as the hero of Aneth, the destroyer of the Nimons. He sat down on a stone bench and sighed.

Hearing a movement behind him, Seth turned to see Adric standing there. "The Doctor sent me," the Alzarian said. "He said I'm to . . ."

"Then tell the Doctor I want to be left alone!"

"Why?"

Seth looked at Adric for several seconds. How could this boy understand? How could anyone understand how he, Seth, felt? "Because, no matter what Teka says, I'm not a hero," he said finally. "I never wanted to be. And I'm not really Aigus's son . . ." He sighed heavily. "My real father used to beat me, so, when I was about your age, I ran away from home. Anyway, after I'd been on the road for a couple of years, some of Aigus's men found me and brought me before the king. I was sure I was going to be sent straight home, so I said I was the son of one of Aigus's mistresses. And he's had so many he can't remember them all, so . . ."

He was cut off by a whooshing sound from outside the palace grounds, as something large and spherical entered Aneth's atmosphere, landing a short distance away. Adric, who had been on the verge of asking what a mistress was, found his curiosity drawn towards the object which had just made planetfall nearby and he hurried to see what it was.

"Adric, wait!" Seth called after him. "It could be dangerous!" But, when Adric ignored him, he realised he had no choice but to go after the young Alzarian.

* * *

A craft resembling a giant golf ball had landed on Aneth. And, as its door slowly opened, its occupant emerged.

That occupant was a short and stocky figure, humanoid in shape and dressed entirely in black space-armour, its face concealed behind its helmet. It reached up with hands that only had three digits and slowly lifted off the helmet to reveal a bald head, resembling a large potato, on a short, thick neck. Small, close-set eyes regarded the surrounding area with the military efficiency the newcomer had been bred for.

The newcomer was a Sontaran.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Commander Vaak was, like all Sontarans, identical in both appearance and attitude to every other member of his race. He thought of nothing but military glory, particularly if it would give the Sontarans an advantage in their endless war against the Rutans. The two races - one vaguely humanoid in appearance, the other resembling blobs of green jelly - had been at war for tens of thousands of years, but neither had ever gained a lasting advantage over the other.

But Vaak was certain that this was about to change. High Command had dispatched him to the planet Aneth on a mission to annex it and seize control of the galaxy's supply of hymetusite, a highly radioactive substance which could serve as an immensely powerful source of energy. And, with that energy at their disposal, the Sontarans would be able to build weapons powerful enough to wipe the Rutans out once and for all - and that was just for starters. The Sontarans lived only for war and conquest; with the Rutans eliminated, they would simply declare war on some other race.

Aneth, Vaak recalled from his briefing, was home to a race of peaceful humanoids. Peaceful? Hah! Peaceful races were weak and easy to conquer; all you had to do was show off your weapons and they instantly surrendered. However, as far the Sontarans were concerned, that had a distinct disadvantage, in that you didn't get the honour of fighting in order to claim their planet. Nonetheless, High Command had decided Aneth was of strategic importance and it was Vaak's duty to lay claim to the planet. If he failed to carry out that duty, he would soon find himself on the wrong end of a firing squad. And, to add to the indignation, he would be forced to stand with his back to his executioners, exposing the probic vent in the back of his neck. To be forced to expose this single weak spot was one of the worst insults possible for a Sontaran; they believed they had turned the probic vent to their advantage because it meant they must always face their enemies.

Vaak was first and foremost a soldier, a soldier who would willingly die for the glory of his race. Since the Muster Parade at which he had been cloned, he had fought in countless battles, so far surviving them all. Perhaps, his time would come and he would be among the honoured fallen in a future battle. In the meantime, however, he had a job to do.

With the military precision typical of his people, he pulled out his communicator and spoke into it. "This is Commander Vaak calling from planet Aneth," he said in the clipped tones of a Sontaran. "As we expected, I have met with no opposition . . ."

* * *

Vaak was completely unaware that he had an audience. Adric had crept as close as he dared to the Sontaran craft, using the trees as cover, and had heard every word Vaak said. The boy had no idea what all this was about, but he was naturally curious, perhaps a little too curious for his own good. As a native of E-Space, he had never seen a Sontaran before and had no way of knowing that Vaak was a member of a race totally dedicated to war. Sontar, the home planet of the Sontarans, was a high-gravity world, which gave its inhabitants tremendous strength. This, coupled with the fact that he had been bred for fighting, would give Vaak considerable advantage over an untrained teenaged Alzarian.

But none of that occured to Adric as he hovered near the spot where Vaak had landed, curious to see what this strange creature was going to do next. He watched as Vaak finished making his preliminary report, then marched off to make himself known to Aneth's leaders, not that they would be leaders for long once the Sontarans had annexed the planet. At one point, Vaak passed dangerously close to Adric's hiding place; luckily, he was too preoccupied by his mission to even think of getting sidetracked, something which wasn't in a Sontaran's nature anyway.

Once Vaak was out of sight, Adric crept forward, intending to take a look at the Sontaran's spacecraft. Anything which involved mathematics was of great interest to the boy, including aerodynamics, a subject he had covered while studying for his badge for mathematical excellence. Earning that badge had made Adric an Elite among his people, but it meant his peers, including his own brother, felt they had even less in common with him than they had before. And the rest of the Elites were much older, too old to understand the needs of an adolescent boy. Not until he visited Traken and met Nyssa had Adric encountered someone who was both his intellectual equal and of a similar age.

For a moment, Adric wondered if he would ever see Nyssa again, not knowing that he would soon be seeing a great deal of her. In the meantime, he crept towards the ball-shaped spacecraft which had brought Vaak to Aneth, curious to see how it worked. But, just he got close, someone grabbed his arm. Irritated, he tried to pull himself free, only to find himself being dragged away from the scene; glancing round, he soon saw that it was Seth who had grabbed him. "What are you doing?" Adric demanded. "Let go of me!"

"Stopping you from doing something foolish," Seth replied. Then, seeing the blank look on the Alzarian's face, he hurried on. "Adric, that thing you saw is a Sontaran, one of a race dedicated to war."

"So?"

"So we've got to warn Aigus and the others. Come on!" Like Adric, Seth had never seen a Sontaran in the flesh before, but he had heard of them and knew they cared for nothing but war and conquest. It was said they were even more warlike than the Skonnons, the race which had once conquered Aneth and whose former leader had allied himself with the Nimon in a misguided attempt to recapture past glories. Fortunately, since the Doctor and Romana became involved in the situation on Skonnos, the Anethans had been left in peace. Until now . . .

* * *

Back in the palace, neither King Aigus and his family nor the Doctor were aware that a Sontaran had landed on Aneth. If they had been, the atmosphere would have been considerably different from the relaxed atmosphere which currently pervaded the room. The Doctor had taken Sopea onto his lap and was entertaining the child by imitating the calls of birds from various planets; she gurgled with enjoyment as he reproduced the cry of a Mokin (an Anethan bird with beautiful scarlet plumage) so perfectly that even Aigus, Meridda and Teka thought it was real for a moment.

It made Aigus smile to see how well the Doctor had bonded with the little girl who would one day be Queen of Aneth. Sopea was already showing signs that she would grow up to be as pretty as her mother, who was currently sitting next to Meridda; she also (or so Aigus thought) ensured that his bloodline would continue to rule Aneth. Meridda had tried to provide him with an heir, but, after she and Aigus had been married for nearly twenty years with no sign of children, the king was forced to consider other options. In the end, he had chosen Teka, then the six-year-old daughter of one of the Anethan nobles, to inherit his throne. With no other family, it looked as though Aigus would be the last of his dynasty, until Seth appeared on the scene and claimed to be the son of one Aigus's many mistresses. Not having been born to the king's official consort, Seth had no claim to the throne, but his marriage to Teka and the subsequent birth of Sopea meant the line of succession would remain in Aigus's bloodline.

But Aigus was unaware of the confession which Seth had made to Romana and, more recently, to Adric. "My granddaughter seems to have taken to you, Doctor," he said, pausing to take a sip from his goblet of wine. Sopea was a bright and friendly child and, unlike her parents, she could grow up without the fear that she might one day be selected for the annual tribute and be shipped to Skonnos, never to return.

For many years, Aigus had been forced to watch helplessly as seven young Anethans were singled out each year and taken on board a Skonnon spacecraft. But he dared not defy the Skonnons - until Teka was among the chosen seven. That was when he decided something had to be done to stop the Skonnons from holding his people to ransom; to that end, he had substituted Seth for one of the boys who had been selected, knowing that, as long as there were seven in the tribute, the Skonnons would not suspect anything. His plan had been to have Seth kill the Nimon, thereby eliminating the need for this cruel tribute. It was a long shot, but no-one on Aneth had the courage to take direct action against the Skonnons; many elderly Anethans still remembered what it had been like when their planet was first conquered. However, Aigus had had no way of knowing that Seth and the others would cross paths with two Time Lords, one of whom was now in the palace.

The Doctor smiled at Aigus's remark. "Oh, it's nothing. I just have a way with children."

"And do you have any children yourself?" Aigus asked next.

Before the Doctor could reply, the door was suddenly flung open. Seconds later, Seth and Adric burst into the room, both of them panting as though they had just made a flat out run. "Sontaran!" Seth gasped once he had caught a little of his breath. "Just outside . . . palace grounds!"

"What?" The Doctor turned to Adric with a start. If there was a Sontaran on Aneth, it could only mean the planet had suddenly become strategically important in the endless war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. And that could have serious implications; the Sontarans cared little for other, weaker races. Military glory was their sole ambition in life and they were prepared to do whatever it took to achieve it, no matter how much collateral damage they caused.

* * *

Wasting no time, Aigus called for two servants and ordered them to take him back to the throne-room. As the servants carried the ageing king in that direction, the rest of the group followed, the Doctor taking the opportunity to fill Adric in on the Sontarans.

"They're a clone race," he explained. "You see one Sontaran and you've seen them all. That's an Earth expression," he added, as Adric looked at him questioningly. "Anyway, it's not just their appearance that's identical; every Sontaran is totally dedicated to war, especially against the Rutans."

"That's what Seth said," Adric said, frowning slightly. "But what are they fighting about?"

"No-one knows," the Doctor said shortly. "I just hope we can stop the Anethans from becoming caught up in it." He had learned enough about the Sontarans to know that they would never call a truce with the Rutans; truces, as far as the Sontarans were concerned, were a sign of weakness. The best he could hope for was to put a stop to whatever plans the Sontarans had regarding Aneth, though how he would do that was as yet unknown.

"But the one I saw was alone," Adric objected.

"And there's probably a whole fleet of warships waiting to back him up," the Doctor added. "Never underestimate the Sontarans, Adric. It could be the last mistake you ever make." He gave the boy a serious look. "Always stay one step ahead of your enemies," he added, quoting one of the most valuable pieces of advice he had heard on his travels. Trouble was, most of the time, the enemy was following the same advice. The real trick for dealing with any foe, particularly one as single-minded as the Sontarans, was to do something they couldn't predict and, therefore, couldn't counter. Luckily, the Doctor was an old hand at devising plans on the spot.

* * *

An unpleasant surprise awaited the group when they arrived in the throne-room. Vaak, dressed in full Sontaran space armour, was standing in the middle of the floor, looking in the direction of the door. The Doctor's hearts sank at the sight of the black-suited warrior; he had hoped Seth and Adric had made it to the palace before the Sontaran. But it looked as though Vaak had approached via a different route. Still, that couldn't be helped now, but the Doctor was determined to put a stop to whatever the Sontarans were up to this time.

As the two servants carried Aigus over to his bed and placed him on his cushions, Vaak studied the humanoids closely. Aside from the servants, who had hurriedly withdrawn from the room, there were six of them, seven counting the infant in the arms of one of the females. Vaak regarded the child with contempt; babies were an inefficient waste of resources, requiring at least eighteen years before they were ready to fight. The Sontarans had a far more efficient method of reproduction; they were cloned at the rate of a million every four minutes, each clone emerging fully grown and ready for combat.

Dismissing the child from his mind, Vaak turned his attention to the task in hand. His mission was simple: annex Aneth and give the Sontarans free access to the planet's resources, especially the supply of hymetusite and anything else that might be useful for the war effort. As for the native inhabitants, his Battalion Leader, General Stulve, had told him they would also make a contribution - as slave labour. First, though, he had to make his intentions known. Stepping up to where Aigus reclined, he saluted smartly and stood to attention. "Are you this planet's leader?" he demanded, not taking his eyes off Aigus for a second.

Aigus coughed. "Yes, I am King Aigus of Aneth. Who do I have the privilege of addressing?"

"That's a strange way of doing things," Adric remarked from the sidelines. But the Doctor hurriedly shushed him, allowing Vaak and Aigus to continue uninterrupted. However, neither the Sontaran warrior nor the Anethan king seemed to have noticed that Adric had spoken out of turn.

"I am Commander Vaak of the Glorious Sontaran Army," Vaak said, proudly announcing his full title. "And I am here to inform you that this planet is now under Sontaran control. All resources will be used to aid . . ."

But he got no further before Adric ran at him and tried to grab him from behind, ignoring the Doctor's warning not to. It took Vaak a matter of seconds to shake off the young Alzarian, sending him flying across the room with one sweep of his arm. "That," he said, as the Doctor hurried over to where Adric lay, "is just a sample of what you can expect if you defy us. The Glorious Sontaran Army has no time for insolent half-forms!"

"As I was saying," he went on, "this planet is now in the hands of the Sontarans and all its resources will, from now on, be used for our glorious war effort. This includes your people. Those fit for work will be used as slave labour; the rest will be eliminated as a waste of resources."

"You might at least give me time to consider," Aigus said, recalling how the Skonnons had kept the Anethans living in fear for many years. When Seth, Teka and the others returned with the news that the Nimon had been defeated, he had thought (as had all his people) that the nightmare was finally over, that they could now go about their lives without fear of invasion. Now, however, he found himself confronted by an emissary from another warmongering race.

"Very well," Vaak said after a moment's thought. "You have twenty-four hours." Not that it would make much difference what Aigus decided; the Battle Fleet was ready and the invasion would go ahead regardless. Vaak clicked his heels sharply and marched out of the room.

* * *

Adric groaned as the Doctor helped him to his feet. He rubbed his head where he had struck it against the floor when Vaak pushed him away, grateful that he had been born an Alzarian; the blow had given him a slight headache, but, with his recuperative powers, that should fade soon. The ability to heal in less time than it took most other races was a trait shared by all Alzarians, though even they had their limits. In any case, when the Doctor asked him if he was all right, Adric simply replied that he "would be soon".

The Doctor gave the boy a serious look. "Just as long as you don't try a stunt like that again. Sontarans may be short, but they're strong." He turned to the Anethans. "Now," he went on, "the way I see it, unless we do something, this planet will soon be overrun with Sontarans. Imagine thousands of troopers exactly like Vaak. I'd rather not, of course, but that's what we're up against."

"Can they be stopped?" asked Teka, holding Sopea close. Like any young mother, she instinctively wanted to protect her child, but how could she protect Sopea from a creature like Vaak? She recalled the co-pilot on the transport to Skonnos, a short man who had made his contempt for Anethans known at every opportunity. Every time he approached the young prisoners, he had called them "weakling scum", but he was little more than a bully and a coward who had been reduced to a cringing wreck when confronted by Soldeed and, later, the Nimon. Vaak, however, was an entirely different proposition; he was a Sontaran, a being bred for war.

"Oh, they can be stopped," the Doctor replied, recalling previous encounters with the Sontarans. "Trouble is, I don't yet know how I'm going to do it."

"I'm sure you'll think of something," said Adric. He had been travelling with the Doctor long enough by now to know that, while the Time Lord had a knack for landing himself and whoever was travelling with him in trouble, he also had a talent for finding solutions. Such as the time he had used one of the scout ships from the Hydrax to impale the Great Vampire . . .

"And don't forget," Teka added, "we've always got Seth. He's the hero of Aneth, remember?" She smiled at her husband, who responded with a non-committal shrug.

Seth sighed inwardly as he realised that he would, once again, have to live up to his reputation as his people's greatest hero.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Aneth was facing its biggest crisis since the days when its people lived in constant fear of another invasion from Skonnos. The Sontarans, one of the most warlike races in existence, had targetted the planet and the Doctor knew that, unless he did something, the results would be catastrophic. He knew enough about the Sontarans to know Aneth must have assumed some significance in their continual war against the Rutans - and the Sontarans would do whatever it took to achieve a military advantage. Not only that, they were capable of destroying anything and everything which stood in their way.

"What are they planning to do?" Meridda asked the Doctor. She and the rest of Aneth's Royal Family were discussing the crisis with the Doctor and Adric. Though, actually, they were only really discussing it with the Doctor; Adric, having never heard of the Sontarans until now, had nothing useful to contribute and sat looking bored with all the talk. In a bid to alleviate some of the boredom, he tried playing a few maths games in his head, but it did little to lessen his frustration at being unable to offer anything useful to the discussion.

"Oh, the usual Sontaran tactics," the Doctor replied. "Take whatever they need to gain an advantage in their endless war against the Rutans, then get rid of anything surplus to requirements." As he spoke, his eyes fell upon Teka, who sat holding her daughter on her lap. Vaak had already made it clear that any Anethans not fit to help the Sontarans with their war effort would be eliminated as a waste of resources and even those who were fit would only be kept alive as long as they were of use. Once the Sontarans had obtained whatever they had come to Aneth for, the Anethans would be of no further use to them.

"Then we've got to stop them," said Seth. "But how?" Once again, he realised, Aneth was in danger and, once again, he would be expected to live up to his reputation as the planet's great hero. He had never asked to be a hero, but his people regarded him as such, especially since he helped to defeat the Nimon.

"Sontarans have one weakness," the Doctor said in reply. "A small vent in the back of the neck." He reached round to indicate the corresponding area on his own neck. "Pierce that and . . . bye-bye, Sontaran. Trouble is, it only works on individual Sontarans; we'll soon have a whole army of them to deal with." Somehow, he realised, he would have to stop the Sontarans before they could gain a foothold on Aneth and he still did not know precisely what their plans were. However, from what Vaak had said, he knew it involved exploiting Aneth's resources in order to help the Sontaran war effort. Unless something was done, the planet would become just another outpost of an empire dedicated to perpetual war, just as it had once been an outpost of the Skonnon Empire.

As a Time Lord, the Doctor was supposed to refrain from meddling in the affairs of other planets; one of the first things a Gallifreyan child was taught after they were taken to view the Untempered Schism was that their duty was simply to observe. If certain races wanted to wipe each other out, that was their business. But the Doctor had always been something of a maverick and was not content to stay on Gallifrey when there were numerous other worlds to explore. Eventually, unable to stand the excruciatingly slow pace of life on his home planet, he had "borrowed" a TARDIS and left - without authorisation. It was a decision he had never regretted, not least because his few return visits to Gallifrey served to remind him why he had left in the first place.

And, during the course of his travels, the Doctor had encountered a number of races who lived only to conquer. The Sontarans were one such race, beings bred for war who would do anything it took to gain an advantage against their old enemies, the Rutans. That, plus the fact that their latest plan threatened the home planet of two young people he had helped in the past, meant the Doctor was determined to put a stop to whatever the Sontarans had planned for Aneth. Once again, the peaceful planet faced the threat of invasion and the Doctor was, as was often the case, the one best equiped to defeat the invaders. The only question was, how was he going to do it?

The Doctor pondered what the Sontarans could want with Aneth and recalled his previous encounters with the race of clone warriors, trying to think of something that might be of use. In the process, he became so preoccupied with possible solutions to the Sontaran menace that he failed to notice when Adric slipped out of the room.

* * *

Adric had had enough of sitting around with nothing to do while the Doctor discussed the Sontarans with the Anethan Royal Family. He had no idea where he was going, just a vague idea of exploring the palace grounds. As with all his companions, the Doctor had warned Adric about the dangers of wandering off on his own, but Adric (partly influenced by his late brother) was not the most obedient person in any universe. However, he was naturally curious, a trait which had been one of the factors in his decision to stow away on the TARDIS. That and the fact that he no longer had any ties among his fellow Alzarians . . .

He had managed to slip out of the throne-room without anyone noticing and was now making his way down the corridor. Thoughts of Vaak and the possibility that he might encounter the Sontaran outside briefly crossed his mind, but he had heard enough to know that Vaak's one weak spot was the vent he had in the back of his neck. That, Adric thought, should be easy to deal with - all he needed was an object capable of penetrating that vent.

There was, he recalled, an expression originating on the planet Earth, a world which the Doctor often spoke of with great fondness but which Adric had not yet visited. An Achilles ankle - or something like that. Adric knew nothing of the legendary Achilles whose story had given rise to this expression; nor did he know that the Doctor had once met the man - or, at least, the man who had inspired the story. However, he did recall that the Doctor had told him it refered to the one weak spot in an otherwise invulnerable enemy. And it seemed that the vent in the back of Vaak's neck was his Achilles . . . whatever it was.

But Adric was ignorant of one important fact; the Sontarans would never expose this one weak spot to an enemy if they could avoid it. Indeed, as far as they were concerned, it gave them a distinct advantage, since it meant they must always face their enemies and fight to the end. No Sontaran would risk the ignominy of being shot in the probic vent while trying to retreat. Not that this mattered to Adric, who was at an age where he was keen to prove himself, an age where, lacking the wisdom of experience, he felt he could handle anything. Even so, his attempt to tackle Vaak physically had taught him a valuable lesson about the relative strength of Sontarans and young male Alzarians, one he did not plan on forgetting in a hurry.

As he approached the palace's main entrance, he saw something which distracted him from his thoughts; the guard called Rilph lay sprawled on the ground just inside the palace, still holding his blaster gun. At first, Adric thought the man was simply sleeping and, since he showed no sign of waking up any time soon, he elected to step over him. When Rilph made no response, even when Adric accidentally kicked him, the boy realised for the first time that something was not right. Kneeling beside the Anethan, he confirmed his suspicions, recalling as he did so the last time he had knelt beside a dead humanoid body. That had been on Alzarius and the body had been that of his brother, Varsh.

Staggering to his feet, Adric hurried from the scene.

* * *

Back in the throne-room, the discussion had reached the point where Aigus had agreed to double the guard on the palace. The Doctor knew more guards would not deter the Sontarans, especially once the main invasion force landed; Vaak was merely a spearhead, sent to Aneth to pave the way for the rest of his unit. But, as Teka pointed out, it was better than doing nothing.

"And I'm sure Seth will find a way to stop them," she added, turning to the young man.

Seth wished more than ever that he could tell her how he really felt about being a hero. It was something he'd never asked for, but the events in his life had forced that role upon him and people seemed to expect it of him, especially since that business with the Nimon. But, much as he didn't want the role, he had never been able to bring himself to say anything to Teka, not even indirectly; on the transport to Skonnos, he had confided in Romana, then begged her not to tell Teka what he had just said.

Just then, two guards entered the room, frogmarching Adric between them. The boy was struggling to free himself, but the guards only tightened their grip on him as one of them made his report. "Your Majesty, Captain Rilph is dead - and this boy was seen running from the scene."

"I told you - I didn't do it!" Adric renewed his attempts to extract himself from the grip of the guards. "That guard was already dead when I found him."

"We've only your word for that," the guard standing on Adric's left retorted. "For all we know, you . . ." But he got no further before Aigus cut him off in mid-sentence.

"Lero, may I remind you that the Doctor and his friend are our guests? And, as such, they are to be treated with respect." He cleared his throat, then added: "I don't suppose you have any solid evidence against this boy."

"He fled the scene of the crime!" the guard called Lero shot back. "That alone is suspect."

Sopea, disturbed by all the commotion, began to cry. Teka tried for a moment to soothe the child, before deciding it would be best if she was removed from the room. Without another word, the young Anethan woman carried her daughter towards the door, stepping past the two guards (still holding Adric) as she did so. Ignoring the interuption, Aigus gave his response to Lero's statement. "That, Lero, would depend on _why_ the boy was fleeing." He turned to Adric. "Adric," he said, looking the young Alzarian full in the face, "could you tell me exactly what happened?"

Adric cast a hesitant glance in the Doctor's direction, then, in response to an encouraging nod, gave a full account of how he had found Rilph's body and how the sight of the corpse had reminded him of Varsh's death. When the boy had finished, Aigus looked from him to Lero and back, as if he could not make up his mind who was telling the truth. Lero could be over-zealous at times, but he had been one of the Palace Guards for many years, almost as long as Aigus had been on the throne. Adric, on the other hand, had only recently arrived on Aneth, though he had done so in the company of the Doctor, a man who had helped free the Anethans from their Pact with Skonnos. And any friend of the Doctor was a friend of Aneth - in theory.

In the end, Aigus turned to the Doctor. "What do you think, Doctor?" he asked.

The Doctor thought for a moment, frowning as he did so. He had not noticed Adric leaving the room, so there was no way of knowing how long he had been gone. On the other hand, the Doctor knew the boy well enough by now to know that, no matter how wayward he was, he was not the sort to do what he was being accused of doing. Even so, there was only one way to clear this up. "I think we should take a look at the crime-scene."

* * *

It was quickly decided that Adric should stay in the throne-room while the Doctor and Seth went with the two guards to examine Rilph's body. "And, this time, young man, you stay put," the Doctor told Adric. "I don't want you wandering off on your own, especially with a Sontaran around." He turned to the three Anethan men standing nearby. "Come on."

Lero and the other guard led the Doctor and Seth in the direction of the main entrance, the place where Rilph's body had been found. The Doctor had an uneasy feeling he knew how the Anethan came to die, one which explained how Vaak had managed to get into the palace. But he couldn't be certain until he had seen the body and, even then, any scenario he came up with would involve a certain amount of guesswork. Indeed, he had often found that guesswork and intuitive reasoning worked where pure logic failed. He just hoped it would work this time.

They found Rilph's body still lying where it had fallen, the guards having made no attempt to move it. The Doctor knelt beside the corpse to examine it, frowning as he noticed a tell-tale mark on Rilph's shirt, a mark which could only have been made by one thing. "Just as I thought," he said grimly, not looking up from the body.

"What do you mean?" asked Seth, keeping a wary distance from the fallen guard.

"He was shot with a Sontaran blaster," the Doctor replied. "And at close range, I'd say." He straightened up and turned to Lero. "Well, I think that clears Adric of any blame."

"Not necessarily," Lero retorted. "Anyone could have fired this . . . Sontaran blaster, so . . ."

The Doctor gave Lero a hard stare, the sort he generally reserved for people who were being extraordinarily stubborn. With his wildly curling hair, long scarf and love of Jelly Babies, his current incarnation could seem like a harmless eccentric. But, beneath the flippant exterior, there lurked a personality that stood no nonsense, that was not afraid to lay down the law. "So you're basing a conclusion on circumstantial evidence?" he asked, cutting Lero off in mid-sentence. "Was Adric armed when you caught him? Did you even check anywhere a weapon might have been hastily concealed? Never mind," he added when Lero did not reply. "I didn't think so. You just saw a young boy running from the murder scene and jumped to what you thought was the obvious conclusion."

"Now, here's what I think happened." The Doctor casually flipped one end of his scarf over his shoulder. "Our Sontaran "friend" arrived at the palace to seek an audience with the king. Only, who did he encounter first? The Captain of the Guard, that's who. OK, you're a guard yourself - what would you do in Rilph's place? I think you'd issue some sort of challenge. And, like any Sontaran, the intruder responds in the only way he knows how, by eliminating the opposition." The Doctor aimed an imaginary gun in Lero's direction. "And, several minutes later, Adric finds the body."

* * *

While all this was going on, Vaak was making his way back to his ship, intending to make a full report to General Stulve. So far, everything was going according to plan; the Anethans did not suspect that his offer to give them twenty-four hours to consider his terms was a clever bluff. Not that Vaak enjoyed using subterfuge - he would much rather have the glory of a pitched battle, but there would be time for that later. As for that fool of an Anethan guard, he had been disappointingly easy to kill; though he had drawn his weapon, he had had no chance to fire it before Vaak finished him off.

To a Sontaran, there was only one way to live and die: in combat. They were bred for that purpose and, like the rest of his kind, Vaak dreamed of the day when he would give his life for the Sontaran Empire. To die in battle was glorious, the greatest honour any Sontaran could achieve; any other sort of death was shameful and had to be avoided at all costs. Far better to fall alongside your comrades while fighting in the name of the Empire than to wither away from having lived for too long. Not that it mattered, though; with their culture of constant warfare, Sontarans rarely, if ever, reached old age.

As Vaak rounded a corner, he saw something standing in the palace grounds that didn't look as though it belonged there. That something was a tall blue box which looked like a police box from 20th Century Earth, but this was Aneth and that meant there was only one thing this "police box" could be. It was a TARDIS - or, to be more specific, it was the TARDIS belonging to the Doctor, a renegade Time Lord who had ruined several past Sontaran strategies. And, if this particular TARDIS was on Aneth, that meant the Doctor was too; he would have to be stopped before he could interfere again.

First, though, Vaak would have to report this latest discovery to his superiors. Dismissing the TARDIS for the time being, he continued on his way, heading back to his ship.

* * *

"Commander Vaak, your report!"

The face on the screen was absolutely identical to Vaak's and to that of every other Sontaran. Like all Sontarans, General Stulve was, as the Doctor had once said, "nasty, brutish and short", caring for nothing but war and determined to do whatever it took to gain an advantage over the Rutans. He had been put in charge of this latest project - the annexation of the planet Aneth so that the Sontarans could use its resources to their own ends - and he was impatient to hear Vaak's progress report.

Vaak immediately snapped to attention, trained to obey his superiors from the moment he was cloned. "Sir! I have met the Anethan leader and given him twenty-four hours to agree to our terms, just as you instructed. He does not suspect that this is merely a bluff and that our invasion will go ahead regardless of what he decides. So far, all is going according to plan, except . . ."

"Except what?" Stulve cut in, his tone sounding even more impatient than usual. "We can't afford any delays!"

"There has been an unforeseen development, Sir," Vaak replied. "A Time Lord, the one known as the Doctor, is also on this planet."

Stulve digested this news in silence. He knew the Time Lords were not usually in the habit of meddling in the affairs of other planets, but the Doctor was another matter. His presence on Aneth could ruin everything, just as he had ruined previous Sontaran battle plans. Stulve prided himself on being a brilliant strategist with a plan for every scenario that could possibly arise, but he recognised the importance of being able to adjust a plan when necessary. And, right now, his main priority was dealing with the Doctor.

"In that case," Stulve said, "I shall send a squadron to Aneth immediately. You will rendezvous with them at the following co-ordinates . . ." A pause followed as Stulve transmitted a series of numbers to Vaak, the co-ordinates of the location where the Sontaran squadron would land. Vaak filed the numbers away in his highly efficient military mind, then stood by to await further orders. "They will be your aides in your new mission," Stulve went on. "To find and eliminate the Doctor! Go now, in the name of the Glorious Sontaran Empire!"

Vaak responded in the only way he knew how. "Yes, Sir!" he replied, saluting as he spoke.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"There's something I don't understand about all this," Seth was saying as he, the Doctor and the two guards made their way back to the throne-room. "Space Control normally warns us if any hostile craft approach Aneth, so why didn't they warn us about Vaak? How did his craft get through?" He thought back to when he, Teka and the Nimon's other would-be victims had returned home in a commandeered Skonnon spaceship, recalling as he did so how Dia had urged Teka to radio ahead lest those on duty at Space Control assume the ship had hostile intentions. And, since the Sontarans rarely had anything other than hostile intentions towards any planet that stood in their way, surely Space Control should have alerted the palace the moment Vaak's craft was picked up on the radar, but they hadn't. No-one had been aware that there was a Sontaran anywhere near Aneth until Seth and Adric witnessed his landing on the planet.

The Doctor frowned at Seth's words. The fact that Vaak had managed to land on Aneth unchallenged suggested that someone on the planet was working with the Sontarans. The only question was, who? Who among the Anethans would do such a thing? And what did they hope to achieve by it? Whoever it was, they must have been promised a large reward, a reward which they would almost certainly not live to enjoy. In the Doctor's experience, the outcome for those who betrayed their people for personal gain was, unless they could be persuaded back onto the right path, inevitable and invariable.

However, he had no time to wonder who the traitor was right now; their main priority had to be getting rid of Vaak and making sure no more Sontarans landed on Aneth. "Look, never mind how he got here," he said shortly, tossing the end of his scarf over his shoulder. "The fact is that he is here - and we've got to see that he leaves without causing too much damage. Come on."

As he spoke, the Doctor glanced at Lero and recalled how the man had not doubted for a moment that Adric had been responsible for Captain Rilph's death. An honest mistake by an over zealous guard? Or did he know more about this business with the Sontarans than he was letting on? It wouldn't be the first time the Doctor had encountered rogue elements at work in any society, but he had no evidence as yet and could do nothing except make a mental note to keep a close eye on Lero. The mere fact that he had accused the Doctor's companion of a crime, even a crime as serious as murder, did not constitute proof of treachery.

* * *

"Did you find anything out?" Meridda asked as the Doctor and the others entered the throne-room. Adric, who had been anxiously pacing the floor, stopped in mid-stride and waited for the answer. He had found simply hanging around and waiting for news extremely frustrating and that frustration had manifested itself in an inability to keep still. Adric hated feeling useless, hated having to wait around while the Doctor went with Seth and the two guards to inspect Rilph's body.

"Well, your Captain was shot with a Sontaran blaster," the Doctor replied, deciding not to voice his suspicions about Lero for the time being. "We found no trace of Vaak, but he won't be far away; his sort always show up like bad pennies. An Earth expression," he added, as several sets of Anethan eyes (and one set of Alzarian eyes) looked at him questioningly. "Look, never mind about that. We've got more important things to worry about, like what the Sontarans want with this planet."

"Not to mention who it was that killed Captain Rilph," added Lero, casting a sideways glance at Adric. "We've only your word for it that Vaak was responsible, Doctor . . ."

The Doctor gave a loud snort of derision at these words. "And I suppose you still think Adric was responsible." The Doctor knew Adric could be rather wayward at times, inclined to do whatever he felt like doing regardless of what others thought was right, but the boy was good at heart. Though he had stolen an image translator which had belonged to the Alzarians' recently deceased chief scientist, Dexeter, he had only done so because the Doctor needed one for the TARDIS, one that had been manufactured in E-Space and would work in that universe. Besides, who was the Doctor to judge a young boy for "borrowing" a single component when he himself had "borrowed" a whole TARDIS?

"Look," the Doctor said impatiently, "I haven't known Adric long, but I know he would never do what you think he did. I mean, he may not be perfect, but who is in this Universe of ours?"

Lero looked as though he was about to say something in reply, but, before he could speak, Aigus coughed from where he reclined on his cushions. "You seem to be forgetting our traditions, Lero," the old king said. "That everyone is innocent until proved guilty. Now, I suggest you leave the boy alone; otherwise, I shall have to dismiss you."

"Innocent until proved guilty," the Doctor remarked. "That makes a change." In his experience, it was all too often the other way round, particularly where he and his companions were concerned. He had lost count of the number of times he or another member of the TARDIS crew had been accused of a crime on purely circumstantial evidence, though it was good to know that, for once, the main figure of authority (in the form of Aigus) was on his side. All too often, the accusations against the Doctor and his companions had been part of an attempt to cover up corruption in the society concerned; either that or they stemmed from a mistrust of strangers. "Look," he said impatiently, "we haven't got time to quibble over this. We need to find out what Vaak's up to and we need to put a stop to it."

* * *

Even as the Doctor spoke, Vaak was meeting up with the Sontaran troopers which Stulve had sent to Aneth to assist him with hunting down the Doctor. There were nine of them, all clones bred for war, all short and stocky with heads resembling overgrown potatoes. They marched in precise step with each other, before stamping to a halt in front of Vaak and awaiting orders; as the highest ranked Sontaran present, Vaak was their leader and the others were answerable to him. He, in turn, was answerable to Stulve and he was well aware of the penalties for forgetting this.

He scanned the nine troopers that had been sent to him, unable to put names to any of them, though that did not trouble him. With an army numbering hundreds of millions, the Sontarans rarely had time for pleasantries like exchanging names. Besides, these were just low-level grunts, cloned for the sole purpose of serving as cannon fodder in the war against the Rutans. As a Commander, Vaak was in a position of authority, albeit a minor one, and he meant to make this clear from the start.

"You have been sent to assist me on a mission for the glory of the Sontaran Empire," he told them, deciding to dispense with preliminaries. "To find and eliminate the Time Lord known as the Doctor. You will not have encountered him before, but he is here on this planet and he is a threat to our mission. And threats must be neutralised!" The last five words summed up the Sontaran attitude towards anything which prevented them from achieving their twin goals of military glory and the final defeat of the Rutans, either by actively opposing them or simply being in the way. While they were useful as a slave labour force, the Anethans (and Adric) would be allowed to live, but the Doctor was too big a threat. Data held at Sontaran High Command showed that he had thwarted several past strategies and Vaak was determined that this time would be different.

He watched with satisfaction as the nine Sontarans standing before him clicked their heels and saluted in acknowledgement of his orders, his highly efficient mind already devising plans for dealing with the Doctor. The first order of business would be to make certain the Doctor could not leave this planet . . .

* * *

Recalling that he had some notes on the Sontarans somewhere in the TARDIS, the Doctor had headed back there with Adric. He did not know if those notes would be of use when it came to dealing with the Sontarans' current plans, but he could not afford to overlook anything that might provide him with potentially useful information. "Never throw anything away," he had advised Harry early in his current incarnation, during another encounter with the Sontarans. It was a piece of advice he had followed to the point where several rooms in the TARDIS were filled with boxes of clutter which he refered to as "valuable equipment" but which Romana had refered to as "junk". However, the Doctor adamantly refused to get rid of any of it, saying he "never knew when it might come in useful".

"Where do you think these notes will be?" Adric asked, as he and the Doctor drew level with the familiar blue box that was the TARDIS.

"Well, unless I've moved them, they'll be in the Archive," the Doctor replied, refering to a room adjacent to the TARDIS's library. This room was where he stored items ranging from the time-logs which he and Adric had looked through shortly before their arrival on Traken to Susan's old school books from her time at Coal Hill School. Despite its name, it was not an archive in any real sense, as there was no systematic arrangement of the items inside; they were simply placed there haphazardly. Several times, Romana had tried to get the Doctor to sort the Archive into some sort of order, but he had always insisted that he liked it the way it was.

Rummaging in his coat pocket, the Doctor handed a key to Adric. "Would you do the honours?" When Adric looked at him blankly, then down at the key in his hand, the Doctor quickly added: "The door! Unlock the door!"

"What? Me?"

"Yes, you! Well, unless you can see anyone else here."

After a quick glance round at the palace grounds, Adric assured himself that there was no-one else nearby. The Doctor's bluster did not bother him; he knew it was just the Time Lord's way, though he had no way of knowing that this Doctor would shortly be replaced by a younger-looking version who would have a rather irritating habit of treating him like a child. For now, though, he stepped towards the TARDIS with the key in his hand and prepared to insert it into the lock. However, just as he was about to do so, he found that his way was barred by something invisible and inpenetrable; the moment Adric reached towards the lock, he suddenly recoiled as though something had punched him.

"What are you doing, Adric?" the Doctor asked, as the boy made several more attempts to unlock the TARDIS, each of which was as successful as his first.

"I can't get in!" Adric kicked at the invisible barrier in frustration and was immediately sent sprawling as the energy bounced back at him. "It's like there's something in the way," he added, staggering to his feet.

* * *

The Doctor had a fair idea what was stopping Adric from unlocking the TARDIS. Stepping forward with his hand outstretched, he paced all the way round the space-time machine, umming and aahing to himself in the way Adric had come to understand meant he was deep in thought. "Just as I thought," he said finally, stepping away from the TARDIS and rejoining his young companion. "There's a force-field all round the TARDIS."

"How did it get there?"

The Doctor frowned. "Take one guess."

"Vaak?" Adric suggested, giving voice to what the Doctor himself suspected. It wouldn't be the first time a Sontaran had used a force-field; Field Major Styre, another member of the clone race, had used one to imprison Sarah Jane while he conducted experiments on her that were deliberately designed to induce fear. And nor was it the first time someone had used a force-field to keep the Doctor from getting into the TARDIS. "Can you shut it down?" the boy added, after several seconds had passed without the Doctor giving any response to what he had said about Vaak.

"I could, but I'm not going to," the Doctor replied. He knew enough about Sontaran force-fields to know that whatever was powering it must be nearby and that it shouldn't take too much effort to shut the device off. But he had other priorities at the moments, priorities which involved Seth, Teka and Sopea, Aigus and Meridda, and every other man, woman and child on Aneth. "Not until we've dealt with the Sontarans. Come on." As he said the last two words, he turned his back on the TARDIS and, with Adric following behind, made to head back to the palace.

However, the two of them had not gone far before they found themselves facing not one, but two, Sontaran troopers, both of whom had their guns gripped tightly in their hands. Before either of the two male humanoids could move, the Sontaran nearest the Doctor raised his gun and fired. As Adric looked on in horror, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing, the Doctor fell to the ground and lay lifeless, the ends of his scarf trailing on the ground.

* * *

Heart pounding, Adric ran over to the Doctor and flung himself to his knees beside the fallen Time Lord. "Doctor?" he said, his voice trembling as he reached out to try and shake the Doctor awake. There was no response and Adric quickly bent over the Doctor, listening to each side of his chest in turn; he had learned early on that Time Lords had two hearts, a trait few other humanoid races shared. But, Adric realised with growing horror, neither of the Doctor's hearts seemed to be beating. "No . . ."

Adric did not want it to be true, not after he had seen his entire family wiped out. He had never known his father, Tarlec, who had died in a hunting accident before Adric was even born, and he had only been eight years old when his mother and grandmother, Jendra and Arna, died within months of each other. And, only a few years after that, he had seen his brother, Varsh, dragged to his doom by a Marshman. With no other family left, he had come to regard the Doctor as a father figure and, now, even that was gone. Tears began to leak from his eyes and, before he could stop himself, he had flung himself across the Doctor's chest and was sobbing brokenly.

"Up!"

Even in the midst of grief, Adric registered the fact that one of the Sontarans was prodding him in the back with his gun. He slowly raised his head, revealing a face stained with tears, and looked up at the Sontaran who had prodded him. The Sontaran looked at the boy with contempt, wondering why so many humanoid beings allowed water to leak from their eyes just because someone close to them had died. As far as he was concerned, it was nothing more than an inefficient waste of bodily fluids; after all, death was a fact of life, especially when you were at war. "On your feet!" the Sontaran ordered, standing by impassively and watching as Adric, his body still shaking with sobs, pulled himself into a standing position. "And take that look off your face!"

As the two Sontarans led him away at gunpoint, Adric risked a quick look back at the Doctor, lying motionless on the ground. However, he was not allowed to linger for long before a sharp command from one of his captors forced him to keep moving.

* * *

"Get in there!"

Adric stumbled as he was flung into the underground cell, ending up sprawled across the floor. But the Sontarans made no attempt to help him and simply marched out without looking back. Seconds later, the door slammed shut, a sound which was followed by the hum of an electronic lock being secured. Adric, however, did not respond; his mind was filled with an overwhelming sense of loss, the loss of the closest thing to a parent he knew. But, more than that, he was ashamed that he had allowed himself to cry when he considered himself too old for such a thing. True, he had wept for the loss of Varsh, but he had promised himself that that would be the last time. A promise he had just broken . . . "Varsh, I'm sorry," he whispered, closing his eyes tight as more tears threatened to leak out.

Lost in his grief and despair, Adric did not notice that he was not alone in the cell until someone touched him on his shoulder. "Adric?" a female voice said. Meridda's voice . . .

He glanced up in response to her touch, then quickly covered his face with his hands, not wanting her to see that he had been crying. Undeterred, Meridda moved closer to the unhappy boy, though she refrained from putting her arm around him. "Adric, what's wrong?" she asked. She had seen the Sontarans throw him into the cell, but had no idea what had happened outside.

Adric mumbled a reply, his words muffled by tears and his hands.

Meridda's only response to this was to prise his hands away from his face. "Look, Adric," she said. "I can tell something's wrong - what is it?" She looked at him in a way which made it clear that she wanted him to take his hands away from his face and tell her properly.

"Adric?" Teka had come to join them, holding Sopea in her arms. "Adric, where's the Doctor?" She recalled how, while the Doctor and Adric were going to fetch something from the TARDIS, a squad of Sontarans had burst into the throne-room, rounded everyone up and herded them into the cells beneath the palace. Everyone, including little Sopea, who was too young to understand the danger they were in. Even so, Teka was not worried; Seth, her husband and the hero of Aneth, was here with her and she was sure he would get them out of this. Not only that, but the Doctor, a man who had met and defeated the Sontarans before, was still free and that gave them a fighting chance. Now, however, Adric was a prisoner as well and there was no sign of the Doctor.

"The Sontarans . . ." Adric replied, his voice shaking. And he began to tell the Anethans what had happened outside in the palace grounds. When he had finished, all of them (including Seth, who had sat down beside his wife and daughter while Adric was talking) looked at each other in silence, a silence which was presently broken by Meridda.

"Is this true?"

Adric nodded, feeling too emotionally drained to say anything more, and Meridda quickly hurried on. "Well, in that case," she said, "we'd better figure out what we're going to do next. We can't let the Sontarans win. Come on," she added, as Adric drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, "the Doctor wouldn't want you to give up. Look, Vaak's trying to "persuade" Aigus to give up his throne and Aigus is an old man - who knows how long he'll be able to hold out?"

"Besides," Teka added, turning to Seth, "we're not going to give up, are we, Seth?"

"I . . . I . . ." Seth stammered, feeling as he so often did that she was expecting too much of him. Ever since the defeat of the Nimon, he had had to live with his reputation for being a hero, a reputation he knew he would always struggle to live up to. And it didn't help that people seemed to expect miracles of heroes. "No, we're not," he said finally, trying to hide the doubt and uncertainty he felt.

"Then neither should you, Adric," Meridda said.

Adric looked at her and nodded hesitantly. During the time he had known the Doctor, he had come to know him as a champion of right and justice, as someone who would do whatever it took to defeat evil and free the oppressed. He thought of the people on the nameless planet that had once been dominated by the Great Vampire and his servants, of the Tharils on Rorvik's ship and how they owed their freedom to the Doctor. And Adric told himself that, just as the Doctor would, he too was going to do whatever it took to defeat the Sontarans.

* * *

In the palace grounds, the Doctor stirred, listening carefully for the sound of any approaching Sontarans. Satisfied that there were none nearby, he sat up and looked down at himself, frowning as he did so. "Soaking my shirt," he muttered as he saw the wet patch left by Adric's tears. "That boy's as bad as Sarah." He felt bad about making Adric think he was dead, but he could hardly reassure the boy with a couple of Sontarans breathing down both their necks. The truth was that, as had happened when he, Harry and Sarah Jane encountered Styre, he happened to have something in his pocket which had absorbed the ray from the Sontaran blaster, though the Sontaran who had shot him wasn't to know that. And nor was that Sontaran to know that Time Lords could voluntarily shut down their bodies, even stopping both their hearts, which made them appear dead to anyone unfamiliar with this particular quirk of physiology.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the object which had saved his life, a circuit board he had salvaged from a wrecked spacecraft shortly before his visit to E-Space. The device had taken the brunt of the blast from the Sontaran's gun and was now damaged beyond repair. "That's had it," the Doctor muttered, tossing the now useless circuit board aside. "Come on," he added, slipping into his old habit of talking to himself as he stood up. "We've got to get the Sontarans off this planet - and we've got to find Adric."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Vaak was growling under his breath, a sure sign that things were not going entirely according to plan. Rounding up the old king's family and imprisoning them in the cells beneath the palace had been easy enough; his fellow Sontarans had taken them completely by surprise, giving them no time to escape. He only hoped the two he had sent to lie in wait for the Doctor had been as successful; if they hadn't, their reward would be a ray-gun blast in the probic vent. The Glorious Sontaran Army could not afford to have bunglers in their ranks. Besides, with their cloning techniques, it was easy for the Sontarans to replace troops at a moment's notice. No-one was indispensible. No-one was irreplaceable.

However, while imprisoning the king's family had been easy, the king himself was proving extremely stubborn. Aigus was currently lying on a table, held there with wrist and ankle restraints which had been designed so that there was no way anyone without the right key could undo them, and Vaak was trying to "persuade" him to give up his throne. So far, despite repeated shocks from the probe held in the Sontaran's hand, the Anethan king had refused to co-operate and Vaak was losing patience.

"I'll give you one more chance," he said, tightening his grip on the device. "Surrender your throne or I'll step up the power in this." He gave Aigus a brief jolt to remind of the power contained in the probe, which was currently set to its lowest level, though that could easily be fixed with a quick turn of the dial. It was surprising what some humanoids would agree to with the application of a little pain. But, then again, they tended to be feeble beings who lacked the endurance of Sontarans.

As before, Aigus grunted with pain as the shock shot through his body. But, as Vaak relaxed his grip and the pain subsided, his reply was the same as on previous occasions. "I told you before - you'll have to kill me before I give up my throne."

Vaak leaned towards his prisoner so that their faces were only inches apart. "That, you Anethan worm, can be arranged quite easily." Like all Sontarans, he felt nothing but contempt for what he regarded as "weaker" races, seeing them as just another resource to be exploited in the endless war against the Rutans. Vaak cared nothing for the old king's welfare or that of his family; the Sontarans needed to gain control of Aneth's resources and that meant eliminating the planet's current rulers. The first rule of conquest was that the previous leaders should be removed from power as quickly as possible, kept alive if they could still be useful to the new regime, killed if they provided a potential rallying point for a rebellion. Vaak did not yet know which category Aigus fell into, but the king's stubborn refusal to relinquish power made the Sontaran suspect that it was the latter.

"But you'll still have my son to deal with!" Aigus shouted defiantly. "My son, the great hero of Aneth - he defeated the Nimon, you know!"

"A mere whelp prevail against Sontaran might?" Vaak shot back. "I hardly think that's likely . . ." With that, he turned the dial on his probe up as high as it would go, to a level where any application lasting more than a few seconds would result in the death of the victim. However, before he could give Aigus another dose, the arrival of another Sontaran interupted him.

"Yes? What is it?" Vaak snapped, annoyed at being disturbed at such a crucial moment.

"Sir!" The Sontaran stood to attention. "I have done as you ordered. The Doctor is dead and his companion is locked up with the king's family."

* * *

In the cells beneath the palace, concern among the prisoners was growing. They knew it was only a question of time before they found out what the Sontarans were up to and they also knew whatever it was would be bad news for them. Somehow, they would have to find a way to escape, but, as Meridda pointed out, that could be easier said than done. "There's a pipe in here which comes out in the Lake of Silence," she said, refering to a vast lake not far from the palace. "We could try to get out that way . . ."

But Teka shook her head. "Sopea couldn't use that route," she said, looking down at the infant sleeping in her arms. She turned her head in the direction of the door, recalling as she did so how the Sontarans had herded them all into the cells. She did not know exactly why they were being held here, but at least they were being kept alive for now, though the experience had reminded her with an unpleasent jolt of the Skonnons, of being forced on board one of their old battle-cruisers to face what had, for many Anethan teenagers, been a one-way journey. However, she had had something the others sent to Skonnos as part of the tribute had not had. She had had Seth, the boy everyone said was the great hero of Aneth, the boy who would free their people from the Pact with the Skonnons.

Coming back to the present, Teka turned to Seth, currently sitting with his back pressed against the wall. "You'll think of another way out, won't you, Seth?"

"If there is another way out," Seth muttered. But, no matter how hard he thought, he could not think of anything except the pipe Meridda had mentioned. It was large enough for them all to fit through, but the fact that it came out underwater meant it was not the best escape route for a small child. Had Sopea been a few years older and able to swim . . .

* * *

Adric had been listening to the conversation in silence, his mind filled with memories of how the Doctor would have found a solution to their immediate problem by now. But, with the Doctor gone, they were on their own, four humanoids (five if Sopea was included) faced with the task of getting out of this cell. Of course, there was still the matter of dealing with the Sontarans, but Adric had always had a strong drive to prove himself, a trait which sometimes led him to take on more than he could handle. He got up and began pacing the room, trying to think of a way out of here. But, no matter how hard he thought, only two possible escape routes suggested themselves: the door, which was locked and would probably have a Sontaran on guard even if they could get it open, and the pipe Meridda had mentioned.

"Meridda," he said, pausing long enough to address the Anethan queen, "you said something about a pipe . . ."

"I already told you," Teka said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. "We can't get out that way with Sopea."

"Why not? I mean, surely you could carry her or something."

"That's not the problem," Meridda told him, sighing under her breath. "The problem is that the pipe comes out underwater - and Sopea hasn't been taught to swim yet."

Adric frowned as he looked at Sopea. Until now, he had only seen Alzarian babies and they were taught to swim when they were even younger than the little Anethan girl in Teka's arms. They had to be; the Starliner's close proximity to the marsh meant it was important that everyone on board learned to swim as early as possible. Even then, the dangers of living so close to water could not be underestimated. Two years before the Doctor and Romana arrived on Alzarius, a little girl called Satie had come close to drowning and, Adric recalled with a shudder, a Marshman had dragged Decider Draith (who had been a Decider since before Adric was born) under the water. Draith had held the post of First Decider, the most powerful position in Alzarian society, for several years, but this had not protected him from attack.

Adric sighed and tried to dismiss the memory from his mind. Thinking about what had happened to Draith would do nothing to solve the current problem of how to get out of this cell.

For several minutes, the prisoners sat in silence, none of them sharing their thoughts with any of the others. Presently, however, Meridda spoke up. "I think, perhaps, we're going about this the wrong way," she said, getting up and walking over to the door. "We got in through this door, right? And that means we can get out the same way."

"But how do we get it open?" asked Seth, frowning. The doors to the cells were operated using a complex locking device which required the use of a numerical keycode. And those codes were known only to a handful of the palace guards. Had the Doctor been here, he would have realised the implications straight away - if the Sontarans knew how to open these doors, one of the guards must be working with them. There was no way of telling who it was, or whether they were doing so voluntarily or by coercion, but that was not important right now. What mattered was getting out of this cell.

"Could it be forced?" asked Adric, recalling how he had used Nyssa's brooch to pick a lock back on Traken. However, neither Meridda nor Teka were wearing brooches and, even they had been, this door had an electronic lock. And electronic locks could not be picked open easily. He sighed and looked down at his hands.

Meridda shook her head. "If we tried, it would only jam the mechanism," she explained. "These doors were designed so that they can only be unlocked with the correct keycodes. And it would take too long to solve it."

"Not for me, it wouldn't," Adric told her, standing up and pointing to his badge. "See this? Well, it's an Alzarian badge for mathematical excellence - and that means I can crack that code."

* * *

Vaak received the report from his fellow Sontaran in silence, pleased that everything was going according to plan. With the Doctor out of the way, the Sontarans could proceed with their plan to annexe the planet Aneth and begin exploiting its mineral wealth. After they had dealt with King Aigus and his family, of course. But, once that was taken care of, Aneth would become another outpost of the Sontaran Empire, another world exploited for a war effort which had claimed countless other worlds already.

"Good," Vaak said shortly. "Go back to the rendez-vous point - I will meet you there as soon as I've dealt with this stubborn fool." He looked at Aigus, still secured to the table, and leveled his probe once more. "Well? Your answer?" he asked impatiently, as the Sontaran who had brought the news of the Doctor's "removal" clicked his heels and marched off without looking back.

"You already know my answer!" Aigus retorted, bracing himself for the jolt of pain he knew would follow his defiance. Torture had been outlawed on Aneth years ago, but no-one seemed to have told the Sontarans that. Aigus had been a young man when the Skonnon Empire fell, but he still remembered the torture chambers beneath the palace; his father, King Edren, reduced to a puppet ruler, had been powerless to stop their Skonnon overlords from torturing prisoners. When the Skonnons began fighting among themselves and their Empire collapsed, the first thing Edren had done was to outlaw the use of torture throughout Aneth. Aigus was the first Anethan to be subjected to it since those dark days.

Vaak's response was swift; he pressed the button on his probe and watched with satisfaction as Aigus screamed in agony. It was amazing the effect a little pain had on the most defiant of people, causing them to agree to whatever you wanted just to avoid further agony. Vaak did not think of himself as a sadist, merely as a soldier who was doing his duty. Right now, his duty was to "persuade" the Anethan king to give up his throne and he was prepared to kill him if necessary.

"Vaak!"

Startled, Vaak whipped round, still holding his probe. That voice sounded familiar, but it couldn't be . . . It was. The Doctor was standing there, drawn up to his full height, his scarf thrown over his shoulder, glaring at the Sontaran with a look of contempt. "Doctor!" Vaak growled. "But you're dead . . ."

The Doctor ignored this statement. "Is this what the Glorious Sontaran Army is doing these days?" he asked, pitching the word "Glorious" so that it conveyed precisely the opposite meaning. "Torturing old men?"

"I am merely doing my military duty. The old fool won't give up his throne willingly, so I must use other methods of persuasion."

"Persuasion? Hah!" The Doctor glared at the Sontaran Commander standing before him. Like all his kind, Vaak was short and stocky and possessed tremendous strength; on Sontar, he weighed several tons, but, not matter which planet he was on, he was not something to mess with. The Doctor, however, had long made it his business to mess with those who would torture and oppress others. And the Sontarans, along with the Daleks and the Cybermen, were high on the list. "More like: "Give me what I want or die a painful death!", wouldn't you say? That's the trouble with you Sontarans - you see everything as something to exploit in your endless war against the Rutans."

"If I do not gain control over this planet, I will have to answer to my superiors," Vaak said shortly. With that, he turned back to Aigus and, before the Doctor could stop him, pressed the button on his probe. Once more, Aigus cried out as the pain lanced through his body, vowing to himself that he would not give Vaak the satisfaction of forcing him to surrender. He would sooner die than see his planet in the hands of another oppressive regime, especially so soon after the Skonnons' attempts to rebuild their old Empire had been defeated . . . Suddenly, Vaak toppled forward; the Doctor, taking advantage of the fact that he was currently occupied with torturing Aigus, had crept up behind him and struck him a blow on the probic vent.

* * *

The Doctor pushed Vaak to the floor. The Sontaran was unconscious, but he would recover and the Doctor knew he had to get out of here before that happened. Then, he would have to find out where Adric and the others were being held so that he could free them and they could make plans to rid this planet of the Sontarans. First, however, he would have to get Aigus out of here. He stooped to examine the bonds securing the king to the table; they seemed to be made of the same metal Styre had used to restrain his prisoners, including a man who had been left to die of dehydration as part of an experiment to find out the effects on humans of fluid deprivation. It had been Harry who found the man, but, by then, it was too late and the man had died before he could be freed.

However, there was still life in Aigus yet and the Doctor was determined to get the old king away from here before Vaak recovered. He did not know where he was going to take him and he still had to find Adric and the others, but his conscience would not allow him to abandon someone in need if it could be avoided. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, he ran the device over Aigus's bonds, only for them to remain securely fastened. "Guess I'll just have to borrow Vaak's keys," he muttered to himself, kneeling beside the Sontaran and removing his keys from his belt.

Freeing Aigus took only a matter of moments. The old man groaned as the Doctor helped him to sit up, his whole body feeling as though it was on fire after repeated shocks from Vaak's probe. He was amazed he had survived them, especially when he was already ill, but he knew that, had the Doctor not intervened, he would now be dead. Even so, he knew instinctively that he did not have long; all the Doctor could do was try to save himself and, hopefully, rid Aneth of its unwanted guests.

"Doctor," Aigus said feebly, "leave me. Save yourself."

But the Doctor was determined not to leave Aigus while he still showed signs of life. "Absolutely not. You're coming with me and we're both getting out of here together." With that, he made to lift Aigus off the table, but Aigus shook his head, too weak to push the Doctor away.

"It's . . . it's too late for me. But at least I can die . . ."

"Rubbish!" retorted the Doctor, cutting Aigus off in mid-sentence. "You're not dying on me, Aigus. Come on."

"No, Doctor, my time is up. But I want you to . . . do this for me . . ." Aigus gasped a few times, then continued. "Keep Teka and Sopea safe - they are . . . next in line to the throne. When I'm . . . gone, the Sontarans will be . . . after them . . ."

"Aigus," the Doctor said, taking advantage of another pause for breath as the old king struggled to stay alive long enough to tell the Doctor his dying wishes, "I can't do that if I don't know where they are. Do you know where the Sontarans took them? Come on," he added, as Aigus struggled to reply. "I need to know."

With his last breaths, Aigus gasped out the words: "The cells . . . beneath the . . . palace. Seth and Meridda too . . . Find them, Doctor . . . Free my family and rid . . . Aneth of . . . these . . . invaders . . ."

"And Adric?" the Doctor asked, concerned for the welfare of his young companion. "Was he with them?" But Aigus did not reply and, looking at the old man lying with his eyes open but unseeing, the Doctor knew he never would. Another life had been lost in the continual war between the Sontarans and the Rutans, another life which the Sontarans would dismiss as "collateral damage". Vaak did not care that Aigus had been a wise and noble king who had ruled his people for many years, nor that he had devised the plan which had freed them from their Pact with the Skonnons. All he could see was an obstacle to the Sontarans' plans and he had removed that obstacle in the only way he knew how.

"I won't let you down, Aigus," the Doctor said, even though he knew the king could no longer hear him. And he meant every word. He would find a way to free Aigus's family and, assuming the boy was indeed imprisoned with them, Adric. Then, they would find somewhere to lie low while they worked out how to deal with the Sontarans. The last thing any planet needed was to be taken over by a war-mongering race, especially when it had recently been held to ransom by a former race of conquerors. Aneth needed the chance to grow and flourish so that, when the Doctor's first self brought Susan here, they would see the planet's civilisation at the height of its powers. And that wouldn't happen if the Sontarans were allowed to take over.

History was a funny thing when you were a time-traveller; your mere presence at any point in space and time other than the one you belonged to could affect how things turned out. That was why the Laws of Time were in place, to ensure that any disruption to history caused by the actions of time-travellers was kept to a minimum. Occasionally, time lines could be rewritten, but the Doctor's innate sense of what should and should not happen on Aneth told him that this was not one of those occasions. If he did not stop the Sontarans, this planet's whole future history would be altered in a way that was not meant to happen. And the Doctor could not allow that.

But, before doing anything else, he reached out and gently closed the dead king's eyelids.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

If there was one thing the Doctor had learned about certain races it was that they never gave up, that they lived only for conquest and would crush all those who stood in their way.

The Sontarans were one such race, clone warriors bred for war whose only ambition, aside from wiping out the Rutans, was to conquer as much of the Universe as possible. And, if you were unlucky enough to be in the way, you would be crushed without mercy unless you had some means of fighting back. However, fighting back against the Sontarans was far from easy; they were tremendously strong and could only be put out of action by a blow to the probic vent, a part of their anatomy they were careful to avoid exposing to the enemy. Nonetheless, the Doctor knew from past experience that they could be defeated and he meant to defeat them again. Whatever they were up to on Aneth, he would put a stop to it; he had promised the late King Aigus as much.

First, though, he had to get down to the cells and free Adric and the king's family. It would be difficult and, even if he could get them out, there was still the matter of dealing with the Sontarans, of seeing that they left this planet and stayed off it. Somehow, he would have to make Aneth seem like a less attractive proposition than Sontaran High Command believed it to be; only then was there a chance that they might retreat, though they would probably call it a strategic withdrawal.

The Doctor scoffed at terms like "strategic withdrawal", considering them to be little more than empty rhetoric, an attempt to sugar-coat the bitter pill of defeat. Anyone who claimed to be "making a strategic withdrawal" was, in fact, just a bad loser who hated having their pride dented. And bad losers almost invariably tried to salvage their wounded pride at a later date by attempting to complete what they had set out to do in the first place. Unless they were defeated so thoroughly that they never dared to even consider it . . .

Even if the Sontarans could be persuaded to leave Aneth alone, it would not mark the end of the Sontaran Empire, merely the end of their plans to add the planet to their list of conquered worlds. Nonetheless, if the Doctor could stop their plans, it would be a major setback, one which might even tip the balance of power in favour of the Rutans. Although, in the Doctor's opinion, the Rutans were little better than their old enemies. He and Leela had once encountered a Rutan when they landed on Earth at the beginning of the 20th Century; that particular adventure had been one of those where everyone who was not a member of the TARDIS crew ended up dead. Usually, there were at least some survivors among those who became caught up in one of the Doctor's adventures, but the Rutan had killed the entire crew of a lighthouse, plus the survivors of a shipwreck, by the time the Doctor defeated it. No, the Rutans were just as bad as the Sontarans, besides which they were not the Doctor's main concern right now.

The Doctor knew enough about the Sontarans and the Rutans to know that neither side would give up on their endless war. The chances were they would continue fighting each other until one or both of the two warring races were completely wiped out. And they were far too evenly matched for that, which was why the Sontarans in particular were constantly searching for some means to gain the upper hand. To that end, they were prepared to threaten a peaceful planet that had already been conquered once in its history, not that the Sontarans cared about things like that. All they could see was a world whose resources they could exploit.

* * *

Meridda had taken charge of Sopea while Seth, Teka and Adric worked on getting the door to the cell open. To do this, they would have to figure out the keycode which would trigger the lock, something which only the palace guards were supposed to know. However, whoever had designed this security system had not counted on two things, namely that a guard might turn traitor or that those locked in this cell might include a mathematical genius from another universe. Right now, Adric was standing at the control panel which unlocked the door from the inside, calculating the first digit in the code while Seth and Teka listened for the sound of anyone approaching. If they heard movements outside the cell, they were to warn Adric to step away from the panel in case it was a Sontaran.

Maths was a subject which had fascinated Adric for as long as he could remember. He had no memory of the incident, but Jendra had once told him about a time when she was teaching Varsh to count using pebbles as markers. Adric, at the time just under two years old, had wandered over and watched the lesson with what Jendra at first thought was the general interest of any young child. But, when she asked her elder son to show her what three plus two equalled, it had been Adric who picked up three pebbles and laid them out in a row, followed by two more. He had then pointed to each of the pebbles in turn and counted out loud: "One, two, three, four, five." Jendra quickly recognised the implications; somehow, Adric had made the connection between the pebbles and the numbers she had been teaching Varsh, even though he had not been directly involved in the lesson. That meant he had an understanding of maths beyond that of most children his age, an understanding which had later prompted Jendra to joke that he knew how to count before he had learned to talk.

Now, Adric had to draw on his skills as a mathematician to crack the code which would unlock this door. Frowning with concentration, he studied the panel closely, noting as he did so that it required the input of a six-digit number, followed by a space, then two more numbers. Eight digits in total - that should be easy enough for someone with his skills. "You're almost up to my standard," the Doctor had once told him after the two of them had finished a session of what the Doctor refered to as "Recreational Mathematics". Adric smiled at the memory, but his smile turned to a frown as he recalled how the Doctor had been shot down.

Adric shook his head; he could not afford to waste time right now, not when he had a code to crack. The trouble was, until he knew the first digit, he had no way of knowing the base for that code. Once he knew that, the rest would be easy, but how to figure out that first digit . . .? There was nothing else for it; he would have to try a number at random and keep trying until he got a result. Romana, he recalled, had called this the "press-any-button-and-hope-for-the-best approach".

"Well, if that's what it takes . . ." Adric began, then stopped when he saw Teka looking at him questioningly. "Sorry, thinking out loud," he added. "Look, you and Seth concentrate on keeping watch and let me do this."

* * *

Vaak staggered to his feet, rubbing his neck where the Doctor had struck him. A blow to the probic vent was not always fatal, but it could be painful, though the Sontarans inevitably prided themselves on their indifference to pain. They were a race of soldiers, after all, and only by learning to ignore discomfort could you become a truly efficient fighting force. Of course, one couldn't expect the same of other races, most of whom lacked the endurance of the Sontaran race and also derived energy from organic chemicals which they obtained through activities they called "eating" and "drinking". The Sontarans did neither of those things; they "fed" by absorbing energy directly into their probic vents and kept their mouths for the issuing and acknowledgement of orders. As was only fitting for a military race . . .

Vaak growled to himself as he recalled how the Doctor, whom he had been informed was dead, had appeared on the scene just as he was trying to force that fool of a king to abdicate. The Sontaran troopers he had sent to assassinate the Doctor had obviously failed - they would be dealt with. First, though, he had other matters to attend to. If he failed to secure this planet for the Sontaran Empire, he would answer to General Stulve. And the order to dispose of the Doctor had come from the General himself; he would not be pleased to learn that the Doctor was still alive.

Examining Aigus, still lying on the table, Vaak quickly established that the old king was dead. "Worm," the Sontaran muttered to himself. "Too stupid to realise that Sontaran might always prevails." Now, he intended to prove it to the rest of the Anethans; their king was dead and his heir was a young female who shouldn't pose too much of a threat. From what he had seen of Teka, he was sure he could set her up as a puppet queen, at least until the Anethans had outlived their usefulness.

The failed attempt on the Doctor's life was a setback, but it was one that Vaak meant to have rectified as soon as possible. Aside from that, everything was going according to plan and Vaak was certain that Aneth would soon be just another outpost of the Sontaran Empire. King Aigus had died in a foolish attempt to defy Sontaran might, his family were safely locked away and the Sontaran battle fleet was in orbit around Aneth, awaiting the order to descend on the planet. Just as soon as the Sontarans' agent on Aneth made contact . . .

* * *

Unknown to Vaak, the prisoners his fellow Sontarans had locked in the cells were only one digit away from opening their cell door and escaping.

As Adric had suspected, once he had discovered the first digit in the keycode, the rest was easy, at least for someone with his talent for mathematics. He doubted many people could have solved it, certainly not as quickly as he had - well, with one or two exceptions such as Nyssa or Zoe, the young human girl the Doctor had once told him about who had travelled in the TARDIS for a time. Adric had never met Zoe face to face, but he had been told that she too was a teen genius with a photographic memory and a talent for mathematics.

However, she and Nyssa were the last thing on his mind as he worked to crack the code that would open the cell door. His mind was entirely focused on the keypad in front of him and, though he was aware of the others in the cell, they might as well have been on the other side of whichever galaxy Aneth's solar system was located in. Seth and Teka, still listening for the sound of anyone approaching, were silent, but he could hear Meridda talking to Sopea in the sing-song tone used to address infant humanoids across much of the Universe. Sopea was responding with cooing noises which were beginning to sound almost like speech. But Adric paid no attention to anything except the task at hand. One more digit to go . . .

Just as Adric figured out what the last digit was and prepared to enter it into the keypad, he was interupted by an urgent whisper from Teka. "Someone's coming!" She and Seth immediately stepped away from the door, but Adric stayed where he was. He did not want to leave off solving the code, not when he was so close to completing the task and getting himself and the others out of here. "Adric!" Teka hissed when he didn't move. "Get back!"

He gave her no response, except to say: "Just let me finish this!" With that, he quickly entered the final digit and the hum of an electronic lock was heard. Adric smiled to himself and patted his badge. He had done it; he had succeeded in cracking the code. He moved towards the now unlocked door, but, before he could push it open, Teka was pulling on his sleeve.

"What are you doing?! I said someone was coming!"

"Getting us out of here!" He shrugged her off irritably and made for the door again. This time, it was Seth who grabbed him and pulled him away, dragging him into the far corner of the cell. Adric seethed with silent frustration. They had been so close to getting out of here, only to be thwarted at the last moment. And, if whoever was approaching the cell was a Sontaran . . . Adric could hear movements in the corridor outside: footsteps and the sound of someone whistling. But who could it be? Surely not a Sontaran; they didn't seem like the sort to engage in activities like whistling. An Anethan, then? But, if it was, how had they managed to slip past the Sontarans?

* * *

"Seth?" Teka whispered, as the five of them crouched in silence, waiting. Even Sopea seemed to have sensed the seriousness of the situation and did not utter a sound. "Who do you think it is out there?"

He looked at his wife and shrugged. "I don't know." As he spoke, he recalled crouching behind the equipment the Nimon had secretly installed on Skonnos, watched as the horned creature activated the device which opened the hyperspace tunnel to allow the Nimon race to escape from Crinoth and invade Skonnos. Teka had asked him what the Nimon was doing, but he could only respond with the same three words he had just uttered; he had no more idea than she did.

"Could it be a Sontaran?" was Teka's next question. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, but the fact that Seth, the great hero of Aneth, was here helped to reassure her. Just as it had done during the journey to Skonnos and the subsequent fight to defeat the Nimon.

"Perhaps, but I didn't know Sontarans could whistle."

Teka gripped his arm tightly. "Whoever it is, you'll deal with them, won't you?"

"Of course I will," Seth told her with more conviction than he felt. Having a reputation for being a hero really was trying at times, especially when all you had ever wanted was a quiet life. But Seth's life had been anything but quiet. His father, whose name he refused even to think, had been a callous and unfeeling man, traits so rare in Anethans that some had speculated that he might have Skonnon blood in him somewhere. Whether that was true or not, he had never shown Seth any love, especially after his wife died a few years after his son was born, instead subjecting the boy to regular beatings and hours locked in a dark cupboard. Eventually, this had led to Seth running away from home and becoming involved in a series of adventures which culminated in him being found by Aigus's men. That was when he had told the lie about being the son of one of Aigus's mistresses . . .

Aigus, who had had a string of mistresses in his younger days, had believed the story. Or perhaps he wanted to believe it because Meridda had failed to provide him with any children. Whatever the reason, Seth had found himself installed at the palace, living as a prince even though he knew he was far from being royalty. Meridda had never objected to his presence, even though she believed he was the result of her husband's liaison with some other woman; Anethan kings often took mistresses, though any children born as a result had no claim on the throne. Besides, by the time Seth appeared on the scene, Aigus had already chosen Teka to be his heir.

Teka, the young woman Seth loved . . . They had been little more than children when they first met, but they had been close right from the start and he had always looked out for her. And she had always had such complete faith in him, a faith he could never bring himself to shatter by telling her the truth about who he was and how he felt about being a hero. He had thought it would get easier as the years passed, but it just seemed to get harder . . .

Just then, the sound of the door opening interupted Seth's train of thought. Seconds later, he and the others were staring at the figure standing in the doorway - a tall man wearing a characteristic long scarf.

* * *

Adric broke the silence first. "Doctor?" he said, blinking in an attempt to reassure himself that what he was seeing was not an apparition. "But you're dead! One of the Sontarans killed you."

"Rubbish!" retorted the Doctor. "I merely suspended my life functions until he and his comrade were gone. We Time Lords can do that, you know," he added, recalling how this ability to effectively play dead had got him out of some tight corners in the past. Or, rather, his personal past; for someone who travelled in time as much as he did, the concepts of "past", "present" and "future" were virtually meaningless unless applied to his own personal time-line.

"You could have warned me." Adric felt acutely embarrassed as he remembered how he had broken down in tears as he knelt beside the Doctor. Now, he found out that all his grief had been unnecessary, that the Doctor had not really been dead.

"How could I, with two Sontarans hovering around?"

Adric frowned; there was still a lot he did not understand about the Doctor and about Time Lords in general. He knew about them having two hearts, but the idea of anyone being able to suspend their life functions was beyond his realm of experience. Nor did he know about another little trick the Time Lords could utilise if their bodies suffered irreparable damage, though he would presently witness it at first hand.

"Look, never mind about that," the Doctor said at length, turning to the Anethans. "How many Sontarans have you seen?"

"Vaak, of course," Seth replied, counting on his fingers. "Then, while you and Adric were gone, about six or seven of them burst into the throne-room and herded us all down here . . ."

"Doctor," Meridda said, cutting across Seth, "where is my husband?" Aigus, she recalled, had been separated from the others shortly after they were brought down to the cells, taken somewhere while Vaak tried to "persuade" him to give up his throne. She had not seen him since, but the revelation that the Doctor was still alive had given her hope that the king might also be safe and well. Now, however . . .

The Doctor shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry," he told her, his tone of voice belying the anger he felt as he recalled the way in which Aigus had died. Like Rilph before him, the old king had become a fatality of the Sontarans' plans, plans which would have to be defeated before any more innocent Anethans lost their lives. The Doctor turned to Teka, now queen of this troubled planet, though she would not be officially recognised as such until her coronation. Until then, Aneth would be in a state of limbo between the end of one monarch's reign and the beginning of the next. The Doctor, needless to say, was determined not to give the Sontarans a chance to take advantage of the power vaccuum.

"What are we going to do?" Adric asked, breaking the gloomy silence which had followed the news of Aigus's death.

"There are nine, possibly ten, Sontarans on this planet," the Doctor replied. "And, unless we can stop them, we'll soon have a whole army of them. Come on."


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Vaak had quickly made himself at home in the throne-room, sitting on Meridda's chair with a satisfied smirk on his ugly face. Aigus, formerly King of Aneth, was dead and Aneth would soon be firmly in the grip of the Sontarans, just as soon as he could persuade Teka to sign over the planet's sovereignty. He knew, from the intelligence which Sontaran High Command had gathered on Aneth, that the young woman had been the king's adopted heir, but she was only a female. A female was all that stood between the Sontarans and absolute control over Aneth and its people.

What was more, the Anethans were not a warrior race; that much was obvious. Like the Dulcians of Dulkis and many other races, they had chosen the path of pacificism, the path chosen by races too weak to fight. Why else would they have allowed the Skonnons to bully them for so long? No, the Anethans were weak, unable to stand up to Sontaran might, only fit for a life of slavery. Vaak's plan was to set Teka up as a puppet ruler and force her to put her people to work in the hymetusite mines; if necessary, he was prepared to threaten the lives of those closest to her in order to make her do his bidding. She had a child and, though the Sontaran race did not have families in the sense most races understood the term, Vaak knew how strong the bond between parent and child could be, though he inevitably saw it as a weakness.

Of course, like any self-respecting Sontaran, Vaak would have prefered to take Aneth by right of combat. But he told himself that the important thing was to gain control of the planet - how that was achieved didn't matter - so that its resources could be exploited for the Sontaran war effort. There was the small matter of the failed attempt on the Doctor's life, but, other than that, Vaak was fairly satisfied with how things were going. Perhaps it was time to contact General Stulve with another progress report . . .

Just then, however, a Sontaran trooper marched into the throne-room and clicked his heels as he stood before his Commander. "Sir," he said, "the prisoners have escaped."

"What?" The smirk on Vaak's face disappeared to be replaced by a look of complete incredulity. "Are you certain?" the Sontaran Commander asked, his voice dangerously low. And, when a Sontaran Commander spoke to an underling with that tone of voice, the underling was well advised to answer truthfully.

"Yes, sir. I just checked their cell and they are gone."

"Then don't waste any more time!" Vaak ordered. "Find them! But," he added as the Sontaran turned to go, "I want them alive. They could be of use to our cause."

* * *

Adric had not known the Doctor long, but he had already known him long enough to know the Time Lord had a knack for getting into trouble. During the time they had known each other, the Doctor and Adric had encountered adversaries ranging from Marshmen to the Master, one of the Doctor's fellow Time Lords - and his oldest enemy. Luckily, the Doctor's habit of attracting trouble was well matched by an ability to get out of trouble. What was more, there were times when he almost seemed to enjoy it, almost as though he considered time spent "not in trouble", for want of a better term, to be time wasted. Indeed, the Doctor had never told Adric that the main reason he had left Gallifrey was because he could not stand to simply observe the Universe like his fellow Time Lords; he wanted to get out there and explore.

Right now, however, Adric's mind was focused on the Sontarans. He knew the Doctor had encountered the clone race before, defeating their plans each time, and wondered how he was going to deal with them this time. "Doctor?" he ventured. "What are we going to do about Vaak and his lot?"

The Doctor looked round at the sound of the Alzarian's voice. "Oh, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said, using another of the Earth expressions which Adric often found puzzling. "Or, to put it another way," he added, tossing one end of his scarf over his shoulder, "I don't know."

"But you must have a plan."

"Plan? Of course I've got a plan! Who said I didn't? I just don't know what it is yet." Which was the Doctor's way of saying he would make it up as he went along. He had always had a talent for improvisation, for making the best use of the materials he had to hand, such as the time he had adapted a miniature tape recorder to create a jamming device which he had used to neutralise a Dalek. Of course, it also helped if you knew the enemy's weak spot and how to exploit it. In the case of the Sontarans, this was the probic vent, though you had to be able to catch a Sontaran unawares in order to take advantage of this single weakness.

Not only did the Doctor have to deal with the Sontarans already on Aneth, he also had to make sure no more landed on the planet. He glanced at Teka, hurrying along the corridor with Sopea in her arms and Seth running beside her, and vowed to find a way of stopping the Sontaran menace. After all her people had been through, the young queen deserved to rule over a planet which was free from the tyrannical grip of a war-mongering race.

Just then, the small party of fugitives found the corridor ahead blocked by a Sontaran, standing there in full battle armour and with his gun trained on them.

* * *

"Back!" yelled the Doctor, grabbing Adric by the arm and propelling the boy back the way they had come. He had been lucky enough not to run into any Sontaran guards on his way to the cells, but it looked as though his luck had just run out. He had hoped they might be able to get into the palace and rally the servants in order to rid Aneth of the Sontarans. The Anethans were essentially pacifists, which was all very well if they were left alone; the trouble was that peace-loving races often found themselves the targets for hostile powers. But the Doctor knew from past experience that even pacifists could sometimes be persuaded to fight if necessary.

"We'll have to find another way out," the Doctor told the others as they hurried back down the corridor. So far, there was no sound of a Sontaran in pursuit, but the Doctor knew better than to trust that this meant they would be able to escape unchallenged. More than likely, the Sontaran they had seen earlier was there to stop them from getting up from the cells and there were probably more lying in wait further along the corridor.

"There's the hidden passage up to my chambers," Teka said. "I discovered it when I was a child." Handing Sopea to Meridda, she began to feel along the wall, searching for the hidden switch. "The entrance should be here somewhere . . ." Just then, she touched a part of the wall that was slightly darker, though it would take someone with keenly perceptive vision to notice the difference at first glance. There was a click and the wall slid away to reveal a flight of stairs leading upwards.

The Doctor smiled with delight; nothing beat a good hidden passage, provided it stayed hidden, though he tried not to think of that. There was a good chance that the Sontarans had not found this one and that gave the fugitives the advantage for the time being. Turning to the others, he quickly told them what to do. "Let me go first. Adric, you follow me. Meridda, you've got Sopea? Good, then you'll be behind Adric, then you, Seth. Teka, you'll bring up the rear. Remember to close the entrance - we don't want any Sontarans following us."

One by one, they stepped into the passage. As soon as they were all safely inside, Teka pressed a switch on the inside wall and the secret entrance slid back into place. Of course, this meant they lost the light from the corridor, but the Doctor had long ago learned that it was important to go equiped for all situations, including having to negotiate a secret passage. As he walked, he produced small glowing crystals from his pocket and placed them on the wall at intervals to light the way. He had done something similar in the Complex on Skonnos, but the constantly changing walls had quickly rendered any attempts to mark a passage useless. Still, there wasn't much danger of that happening now.

"Guess all we have to worry about is whether there's a Sontaran waiting for us at the other end," he muttered to himself.

His voice carried to Teka, who instinctively looked to the young man everyone said was the greatest hero Aneth had ever known. "If there is, you'll deal with him, won't you, Seth? Like you dealt with the Nimon?"

"How, exactly?" Seth asked, wishing for the umpteenth time that he could rid himself of his heroic reputation and lead a quiet life. "In case you haven't noticed, none of us are armed."

"You'll think of something," Teka said. She might have said more, had the Doctor's voice not cut into the conversation between the two young Anethans, telling them to "come on".

* * *

Presently, they reached the end of the passage. Teka told the Doctor how to find the switch which would allow them to exit and, moments later, they were emerging into a grand bedroom, the room which had been Teka's private quarters since she was brought to the palace as a child to be groomed as Aigus's heir and which she had shared with Seth since their marriage. Before that, Seth had had his own quarters elsewhere in the palace, though plans had been made to redecorate them for Sopea when she was old enough to need quarters of her own. At the moment, however, the infant slept in a cradle placed in one corner of her parents' room.

Once everyone was out of the passage, Teka pulled it closed, revealing a life-size portrait of a young woman wearing a long white gown with no ornamentation apart from the simple gold chain around her neck. Teka and Meridda both wore identical chains, which indicated that they were female members of Aneth's Royal Family; male royalty showed their status via gold epaulettes and belts. "This is Queen Sopea," Meridda explained, seeing the Doctor looking at the portrait questioningly. "This little one is named after her," she added, nodding towards the baby in her arms and handing her over to Teka.

Teka took the child and carried her over to the bed in the centre of the room. Sitting down, she held Sopea on her lap, recalling how she had fled to this very room on learning that she had been selected for the annual tribute. She remembered weeping with despair at the thought of never seeing her home planet again, of being sent on a journey all young Anethans feared but in which they had no choice. In order to avoid an invasion from Skonnos, the Anethans dared not risk breaking the Pact, not even when the heir to the throne was among those chosen.

Glancing at Seth, Teka remembered the moment she learned that all was not lost . . .

_"Teka, may I speak to you?"_

_Teka looked up to see the king standing in the doorway. She hurriedly brushed away her tears, wondering what he was doing here. Aigus did not usually come to her private quarters, especially now that she was almost a young woman, and she had an uneasy feeling he had come to say a final goodbye. Even so, she decided it would be better to hear him out and silently nodded her assent._

_"Teka," Aigus said, crossing the room and sitting down in a chair facing her, "I've been thinking it's time we did something about the Skonnons and the Nimon."_

_"But what can we do?" Teka asked, bewildered. "If we don't send the tribute, Skonnos will invade us. And we're not like the Skonnons - we can't invade them." She looked down at her hands and tried not to think about what might happen to her when she got to Skonnos. People guessed it must be something bad, but no-one knew for sure and only the fear of invasion kept the Anethans from trying to pull out of the Pact._

_"True," Aigus replied. "But we can make sure we never have to send another tribute."_

_"How?"_

_Aigus cleared his throat. "The Skonnons are expecting four girls and three boys, but only the Selectors know what the ones chosen look like - and they're not the ones who collect the tribute. So I will have Seth take the place of one of the boys . . ."_

_"And Seth will kill the Nimon and set us all free," Teka finished. She had not known Seth long, but she had heard all about his heroic exploits and was certain he would be the one to bring an end to the Pact which had caused so much heartache._

Just then, Teka was brought back to the present by the sound of a rustling paper bag. The Doctor, sitting in the same chair Aigus had occupied, was holding out a bag of sweets shaped like brightly coloured humanoids, sweets just like the ones he had offered the young Anethans when he met them on the transport to Skonnos.

"Jelly Baby, anyone?"

* * *

Jelly Babies were currently the last thing on Vaak's mind. One of his underlings had reported seeing the escaped prisoners, but they had eluded capture and their current whereabouts was unknown. It was as though they had vanished without trace, a statement Vaak greeted with the contempt it deserved; nothing vanished without trace. The fugitives must be in the palace somewhere and that meant he and his fellow Sontarans would have to force them out. "Was the Doctor with them?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

"He was, sir."

Vaak growled, recalling how the attempt on the Doctor's life had failed. Until the Time Lord was dealt with once and for all, the Sontarans' mission to Aneth was threatened. And Vaak knew only too well that General Stulve would grow increasingly impatient the longer the invasion fleet was delayed. It was vital that Aneth be secured in the name of the Glorious Sontaran Empire, vital that the Sontarans gained total control over the planet and all its people and resources. And, with the Doctor's previous track record for thwarting Sontaran plans, he would have to be "removed". This time, Vaak vowed to himself, there would be no mistakes; he would deal with the Doctor personally.

And, then, there was the matter of Teka. His plans for Aneth involved setting her up as a puppet queen, keeping her alive as long as she was useful and forcing her to do whatever the Sontarans ordered. But that was impossible as long as she and the rest of the Royal Family stayed hidden; somehow, he had to force her into the open and there was one strategy that was guaranteed to succeed. He turned to his fellow Sontarans, who were standing to attention a few feet away.

"I have a task for you," he said. "I need you to round up some hostages - palace servants will do. Get as many as you can and bring them in here."

As his fellow Sontarans saluted and marched off to scour the palace in search of servants to use as hostages, Vaak sat back in his seat and allowed himself to relax. Or, rather, he allowed himself to lower his guard a little, which was the closest a Sontaran could come to relaxation. As a military race, they had little time for anything that did not involve fighting and Vaak meant to have this mission dealt with as quickly as possible so that he could rejoin his comrades at the front.

* * *

Curious to see what was happening elsewhere in the palace, the Doctor had turned on a television monitor in Seth and Teka's quarters and was idly flicking from one screen to another. Meridda had told him that there were similar monitors all over the palace; they were intended as a security measure, though they were seldom used. Indeed, as far as she could recall, this was the first time this particular monitor had even been switched on since the Pact with Skonnos ended.

Right now, there seemed to be surprisingly little activity, but the Doctor knew better than to trust a lack of action, especially when races like the Sontarans were involved. Vaak and his underlings must be planning something . . . Sure enough, just as the Doctor switched the view from the palace grounds (where the TARDIS still stood, doubtless still surrounded by the force-field) to the throne-room, something finally happened. A small group of men and women, flanked by Sontarans, was led into the room and forced at gunpoint to kneel before Vaak.

Adric, watching the scene from over the Doctor's shoulder, frowned. "Now what are they up to?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," the Doctor said, turning in his seat. However, he had an uneasy feeling he knew what the Sontarans were up to . . . "Can you get me sound on this?" he said to Seth, who, out of the four Anethans, was the one nearest to the monitor.

Seth stepped forward and fiddled with the monitor's controls. Seconds later, Vaak's voice could be heard as clearly as if the Sontaran was in the room with them. " . . . timatum to those who defy the Glorious Sontaran Empire," he was saying. "The action my comrades are about to take will cease only when Teka, heir to the throne of this insignificant planet, emerges from her hiding place and is prepared to agree to our terms. These terms are as follows: she will ascend to the throne, but as a puppet of the Sontaran Empire and will have no power in her own right. Moreover, these terms are final and non-negotiable." With that, he signaled to the nearest Sontaran, who dragged a young manservant out of the line of hostages.

Vaak raised his gun and, without showing any sign of emotion, shot the young man in the chest. As the man fell to the floor, dead, another victim was quickly selected, this one a slightly older man whose brown hair showed flecks of grey. The Doctor quickly realised the implications, having once seen the Daleks do something similar to force him to release Davros. Vaak, whether he knew the Doctor and the others were watching or not, was going to kill the hostages one by one until Teka was surrendered. And that posed a dilemma; the Doctor's conscience would not allow him to stand by and watch innocent Anethans being gunned down, but nor would it allow him to let Teka become a puppet of the Sontaran Empire.

There was nothing else for it. They would have to get down to the throne-room and try to stop the executions before all the hostages were killed.

* * *

"Stop!"

Vaak, his gun poised to shoot the next hostage, whipped round at the sound of the Doctor's voice. The Time Lord, his scarf flying behind him, had burst into the throne-room, with Seth and Adric flanking him and Teka (carrying Sopea) and Meridda immediately behind. Their appearance did not entirely come as a surprise to the Sontaran; quite by chance, his troops had discovered a communication system hidden in the throne-room and he guessed the Doctor and the others had at least heard the executions. "Well, Doctor?" he said, trying to sound casual. "Do you accept my terms?"

"Terms?" There was no disguising the contempt in the Doctor's voice. "Ha! You plan to turn Teka into a puppet queen of a planet of slaves - I know how you Sontarans operate. And I also know what would happen to the Anethans once they'd served your purposes. Call yourselves glorious? You're nothing but butchers, the lot of you!"

Vaak did not reply for several seconds. "Brave words, Time Lord," he said finally. "But that won't save these people unless you agree to my terms." He left little doubt that he meant exactly what he said; either Teka was handed over and accepted her status as a puppet queen or all the hostages would die. Those were the terms he was offering and, like all Sontarans, he would accept no others. The planet Aneth must be annexed; it was strategically important in the endless war between the Sontarans and the Rutans.

With that, he raised his gun, which he had lowered slightly when the Doctor and the others burst into the room, and another victim was added to the two hostages who had already been killed. As a fourth victim was selected and hauled forward to await his doom, the Doctor slipped his hand into his pocket, winking at Adric as he did so. Seconds later, just as Vaak prepared to fire, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pressed a switch on the device, causing it to emit a deafening screeching noise. The effect was instantaneous; the Sontarans in the room dropped to their knees, holding their heads, and were so distracted by the noise that they did not notice when the Doctor and the others (including the surviving hostages) made their escape.

* * *

"What do we do now?" Seth asked, once they were all safely in the corridor and the Doctor could switch off his sonic screwdriver. "It's all very well rescuing one lot of hostages, but the Sontarans won't give up that easily."

The Doctor knew Seth was right. He had used the screwdriver on a frequency to which he knew Sontarans were sensitive, but the effect was only temporary and would be wearing off soon. And, when that happened, it would not be long before they discovered that their prisoners had escaped. Something would have to be done to put a stop to the Sontarans' plans for Aneth once and for all. Somehow, he would have to persuade the Anethans to drive the invaders off their planet, but that meant trying to stall Vaak while he got the resistance organised.

And there was only one way to do that. "Teka," he said, turning to the young woman, "I need you to co-operate with the Sontarans."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Adric looked at the Doctor, wondering if he had heard correctly. Surely, after everything the Doctor had said about the Sontarans, he didn't really want Teka to co-operate with them. He opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor hurriedly hushed him before he could say a word.

"I don't really want her to co-operate," the Doctor explained. "But, if we can get Vaak thinking he's got her where he wants her, it'll make it easier to organise the resistance." At least that was the theory; in practice, there were so many things that could go wrong with the plan, not least of which was the fact that Vaak, as an experienced Commander, was bound to see through the ruse. But it was the best plan they had, so all they could do was hope Teka would be able to pull it off.

"Oh, I see," said Adric. "She'll only be pretending."

"Exactly." The Doctor clapped Adric on the shoulder. "Lull the enemy into a false sense of security. Then, when they least expect it . . ."

". . . you strike back," Adric said, finishing the Doctor's sentence for him. He did not know what the Doctor's plans were for dealing with the Sontarans - indeed, the Doctor himself did not yet have it all figured out - but he was sure it would be something good. After all, it had been the Doctor who figured out how to drive the Marshmen out of the Starliner, how to destroy the Great Vampire, how to get out of E-Space, how to defeat the Master . . . Although, as the Doctor and Adric would presently learn, the Master had not been entirely defeated during their encounter with him on Traken.

The Doctor flashed a smile at Adric, who grinned back. It had been a long time since the Doctor had had a teenager in the TARDIS; it was good to have another youngster, someone no longer a child but not yet an adult, travelling with him, though he had not been too pleased when he first found out that Adric had stowed away. He had planned to take the boy back to the Starliner, but had subsequently changed his mind and Adric had accompanied the Doctor into N-Space.

The Doctor then turned to Teka and began to outline what he wanted her to do.

* * *

Vaak looked up as Teka slowly walked into the throne room. Her posture was upright, her expression strictly neutral, as she drew level with the Sontaran Commander and stood before him, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the floor. Leaning forward in his seat, Vaak studied the young woman closely, his militaristic mind telling him that she must have a reason for coming in here, though he could not work out what that might be. Females, in Vaak's view, served no purpose apart from being essential for the, as the Sontarans saw it, inefficient system of reproduction favoured by most races.

"Yes? What is it?" he barked, looking at Teka suspiciously out of his small eyes.

Teka tried to keep her voice steady as she repeated the words she had agreed with the Doctor. But her heart was pounding all the while she stood there, dreading the thought that Vaak might realise this was all a ruse. He would never believe she was really co-operating with him; he was too experienced a soldier not to spot when someone was only pretending. But she tried not to think of this, not when the whole future of Aneth depended on her being able to convince Vaak that she was willing to work with him. "I agree to your terms," she told him, hoping desperately that she sounded convincing. "Aneth will become a part of the Sontaran Empire and I will be queen in name only."

"You accept that your people cannot prevail against Sontaran might. A wise decision, but your willingness makes me suspicious. How do I know you are not trying to divert my attention while your people organise a rebellion?"

The Doctor had warned Teka to expect this question, or something similar. "My people are not warlike," she said simply. "They would not fight back even if they could." That had certainly been true when the Anethans were being held to ransom by the Skonnons; fear of the Skonnon battle fleet, combined with the Anethans' natural pacifism, had kept them from taking action to prevent the Skonnons from claiming the annual tribute. Until Aigus had devised the plan to destroy the Nimon . . . Now, however, the Doctor was trying to organise the Anethans to oppose the Sontarans, though Teka could not let Vaak know this. She would have to go along with the Sontaran and hope the Doctor's plan succeeded.

"Very well," said Vaak. "But, to ensure your full co-operation, hostages will be taken. Should you show any sign of betraying us . . ." He left the sentence unfinished, but Teka did not doubt what he meant.

* * *

The Doctor and the others had retreated to Seth and Teka's quarters and had been watching this scene on the security monitor. The Doctor frowned when he heard Vaak's words; he had hoped this plan would not involve any more Anethans being taken hostage. On the other hand, he realised, he should have known better than to expect that of a Sontaran. They were well-versed in the art of war and would do whatever it took to achieve their objectives, no matter what the cost. To Vaak, the Anethans were just another obstacle standing in the way of the Sontaran Empire, another obstacle to be ruthlessly swept aside by the might of his people's forces. The Sontarans were only interested in Aneth's resources; the people were expendable.

Switching off the monitor, he turned to face the others. Meridda was sitting with Sopea on her lap, while Seth stood leaning against the wall and Adric was perched on the edge of the bed. None of them spoke, but the expression on all their faces asked the same question: "What do we do now?"

"Well, first of all, we've got to find a way of getting out of here," he replied, stretching his legs out in front of him as though he was relaxing in the TARDIS.

"That won't be easy," Seth said, frowning slightly. "The Sontarans won't have left the palace unguarded."

"We'll worry about that when we have to." As far as the Doctor was aware, there were still only ten Sontarans on Aneth, but there were no guarantees of that. Indeed, it would not have surprised him if more had arrived in the last few hours - and he had seen how much damage a single Sontaran warrior could do. They could not be allowed to gain a foothold here, but the Doctor needed the help of the Anethans to rid the planet of Vaak and his troops, hopefully without adding too many more innocent victims to the list which already included Rilph, Aigus and the hostages that had been killed to force the Doctor and the others out of hiding. "Seth," the Doctor added, "you come with me. Meridda . . ."

"I'll stay here with Sopea," the woman said. She wanted to see the Sontarans defeated as much as the Doctor did, but she also recognised the importance of protecting the child who would one day grow up to rule Aneth. Sopea was too young to be trusted not to make a sound at an inopportune moment; it would be safer if she was kept out of sight until this crisis was over.

"Good." The Doctor nodded approvingly, then turned to his young companion. "And Adric . . ."

Adric looked at the Doctor expectantly. "Yes?"

"You stay with them." Adric frowned and started to object, but the Doctor only raised his hand for silence. "Look, you've seen how ruthless the Sontarans are - I don't want you risking your life out there." But, even as he spoke, the Doctor doubted Adric would obey. The boy, as the Doctor had learned in the short time they had known each other, could be brave to the point of being reckless, a trait shared by many young male humanoids. Time and maturity usually curbed such traits eventually, as the foolhardy courage of youth was tempered by the wisdom of experience, though they would never have a chance to do so in Adric's case.

* * *

Once Adric had reluctantly agreed to stay out of sight with Sopea and Meridda, the Doctor and Seth left the room, locking the door behind them and taking care to check that no Sontarans were anywhere nearby. The Doctor knew how persistant the Sontarans could be and had not forgotten that one of them had tried to kill him earlier; they would be looking for an opportunity to make another attempt. And there were few things more dangerous than a Sontaran with an objective; tremendous physical strength and a ruthless military mindset meant they were not a race to be taken lightly. War was their raison d'etre, their only goal in life, and they were prepared to destroy anything which stood in their way and was of no use to the Sontaran war effort. The Doctor still did not know precisely what their plans for Aneth involved, but prior experience of the clone warriors told him they would not attempt to invade a planet unless it had some strategic significance.

"Can the Sontarans really be beaten?" Seth asked as he and the Doctor hurried down the corridor leading to the cells.

"Oh, yes. Like I said, they have their weak spots. The probic vent is one, but they won't expose that if they can avoid it. But they're also very single-minded - and that can give you an advantage."

"How?" Seth wished for the umpteenth time that he could free himself from his heroic reputation. He thought of Teka, pretending to co-operate with Vaak, and how she must be telling herself that he, Seth, was going to rid Aneth of the Sontarans, just as he had once freed the Anethans from their Pact with Skonnos. She placed so much faith in him that he had never been able to tell her how he really felt about being the hero of Aneth, a role which fate had forced on him and for which he had never asked. Fortunately, since he and the others returned from Skonnos and all the excitement over the defeat of the Nimons had died down, he had not been called on to fulfil this role very often. Until now . . .

"Well, Sontarans as I told you are very methodical," the Doctor replied. "They must have been observing this world for a long time. Find out what makes the people tick, that sort of thing." He considered voicing his suspicions that Lero, the guard who had accused Adric of killing Rilph, had been working for the Sontarans as an inside man, but thought better of it. "So," he went on, "they won't be expecting you to put up too much of a fight. Correct?"

Seth nodded. "We've always been a peaceful people - war plays no part in Anethan tradition."

"Yes," the Doctor said grimly. "And look where it got you." Attempting to live in peace was all very well, but there was a fine line between being a pacifist and being a pushover. For years, the Anethans had meekly done as the Skonnons ordered and even King Aigus himself had not done anything to stop them, until Teka was among the young people selected for the annual tribute. "You need to stand up for yourselves, or every war-mongering race in the Universe will think Aneth is fair game. It's not just Skonnons and Sontarans out there, you know. There's Daleks, Cybermen . . ."

"But, if we do fight, won't it mean people end up being killed?"

The Doctor was all too aware of the answer to Seth's question; his adventures almost inevitably involved some violence, though he tried to avoid it where possible. But this was neither the time nor the place to debate ethical issues. "Look," he said. "Do you want Teka to become the Sontarans' puppet? Do you want to see your people subjugated again?"

Seth shook his head.

"Then, come on!" the Doctor urged the young Anethan.

* * *

Meridda smiled indulgently as Sopea pulled herself into a standing position, using the edge of the bed as a support. The child's legs were not quite able to support her unaided, but it wouldn't be long before they were and, when that happened, Sopea would soon be taking her first unsteady steps. She was beginning to grow from a baby to a little girl, a smaller version of Teka, but what sort of world would she grow up in? Meridda had grown up at the time when the Skonnon Empire was at its peak, when it seemed nothing could stop them. She remembered what that had been like and the relief when the Empire finally started to collapse and the Skonnons withdrew their troops from Aneth. Until the Nimon appeared on the scene . . .

Sopea had been born four years to the day since the Nimons were defeated and it had seemed she was destined to grow up on a planet free from tyranny. But the arrival of the Sontarans had changed all that. Indeed, given what she knew about their warlike reputation, Meridda wondered if Sopea would have a chance to grow up at all. But she composed herself and lifted the child into her arms; she had to stay strong, for Sopea's sake.

"I just hope they're not making your mother's life too difficult," she said, only half-addressing the infant she was holding. She did not like the thought of Teka even pretending to co-operate with the Sontarans, but if it was the only way to divert their attention while Seth and the Doctor organised the rebellion . . .

In an attempt to distract herself from thoughts of the Sontarans, Meridda began to hum an old Anethan lullaby, one she had heard from her mother when she, Meridda, was a small child. Occasionally, she glanced at Adric, who sat looking decidedly fed up with being stuck in this room. Indeed, more than once, Adric had been on the point of following the Doctor and Seth; the only thing that had stopped him had been the fact that he could not do so in full view of Meridda.

Just then, a loud pounding on the locked door made Meridda and Adric look up with a start. "Open up in the name of the Sontaran Empire!" But neither Adric nor Meridda moved; even if the speaker hadn't said the words "Sontaran Empire", the sound of his voice would have betrayed him as one of the clone race.

"They must have orders to search every room in the palace," Meridda explained, as Adric looked at her questioningly.

"But they can't know there's anyone in here." Adric thought longingly of the TARDIS, which would have been a much better hiding place than Seth and Teka's quarters. The Doctor had told him that, once the time machine's doors were secured, it was virtually impossible for an intruder to break in. But the TARDIS was still surrounded by the force-field which the Sontarans had set up, so hiding there was not currently an option.

Just as Meridda was about to say something in reply, she noticed that the lock on the door was glowing ominously. "The Sontarans," she said grimly. "Trying to blast through the lock." She looked at the two young humanoids, the infant Anethan in her arms and the teenaged Alzarian, realising as she did so that there was no way out. There was at least one Sontaran on the other side of the door and, though the three of them could have escaped down the hidden passage leading to the cells, the only way out from down there was via the pipe which led into the Lake of Silence. And, as Teka had said in the cells, they could not use that escape route with a small child.

* * *

However, that particular escape was an option for the Doctor and Seth, unencumbered by Sopea as they were. They had reached the cells without incident and the Doctor was currently using his sonic screwdriver to remove the panel which covered the entrance to the pipe. Seth, keeping a lookout for any Sontarans who might decide to check the cells, was growing increasingly agitated, afraid that every second they stayed in the palace brought them closer to discovery. "Hurry up, Doctor!" he said in an urgent whisper. "The Sontarans could find us at any moment!"

"Look," the Doctor replied, "if you think you can do this any quicker . . ." He was tempted to point out that, even with the sonic screwdriver, panels could not be removed instantly. "I'm not a magician, you know," he said instead. "I can't perform miracles."

"And I'm not a hero," Seth said abruptly. "Not like Teka thinks, anyway. It's just that I happened to be around at important moments." He sighed. "All I ever wanted was a quiet life - I never asked for any of this."

The Doctor thought he detected a note of fear in the Anethan's voice, but he knew from experience that Seth was no coward. His real problem seemed to be a lack of confidence and an inability to believe that one person could make much difference. In his mind, the Doctor heard his previous incarnation saying: "Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened . . . It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway." On that occasion, he and a Thal named Codal had been imprisoned by the Daleks on the planet Spiridon and Codal had confessed to feeling that he was in way over his head. It had led to what the Doctor had refered to as a "little tutorial on bravery".

Now, the Doctor was with another young man who also felt he was being asked to take on more than he could handle. "Oh, I thought you did all right against the Nimons," he said as he continued to work on the panel.

"Yes, because you and Romana helped me. But Teka thinks I did it all alone . . ." Seth sighed again. "I just don't know how to tell her the truth: that I'm not a hero, or even a real prince. So I'm stuck with pretending to be something I'm not."

The Doctor sensed that part of the reason for Seth's concern was fear of how Teka might react when Seth told her the truth about how he felt. She placed great faith in him - the Doctor had seen that when he first met the two young Anethans - and the fact that she had not witnessed the defeat of the Nimons first-hand gave her no reason to doubt that Seth had been the one who brought down the powerful horned creatures. Even so, she was no longer the girl she was then; she was a young woman who was currently pretending to co-operate with the Sontarans. And, if she could handle that, she should be able to handle the news that Seth was not quite the hero she imagined him to be. In fact, if Seth told Teka the truth, it would make him a hero in a different sense. But all that was academic unless they could rid this planet of the Sontarans.

Just then, the sonic screwdriver finished its task of unscrewing the bolts which held the panel in position, enabling the Doctor to lift it up to reveal a passageway just wide enough for an adult humanoid. Peering into the passage, the Doctor recalled how Sarah Jane had once said there was usually something unpleasant waiting at the exit of a tunnel like this, but he quickly dismissed the thought; there was already something unpleasant in the palace and it was his job to get rid of it. The Doctor removed his coat and scarf, knowing they would only encumber him once he emerged into the Lake of Silence, before he and Seth crawled into the pipe.

* * *

Three Sontarans burst into Seth and Teka's quarters, blasters raised ready to deal with whoever was inside. There was no disguising the contempt on their faces when they found themselves face to face with an older woman, a teenaged boy and a baby. "A female and a couple of half-forms," one of them growled, the barrel of his blaster only inches from Adric's head. His militaristic instincts taking over, he squeezed the trigger on his blaster, preparing to fire. Sontarans never turned down a chance to take a life; part of their warped concept of "honour" included the notion that death was always glorious, whether you were dealing it out or were on the receiving end, though the latter only applied to death in battle.

"No!" A sharp command from the leader of the three Sontarans made the one who had been about to shoot Adric lower his gun, not willingly but obediently. "We will take them alive. They shall be among the hostages Vaak wanted." After all, he reasoned, the infant was Teka's daughter and, while he himself had nothing but contempt for the bond between mother and child, he knew it could easily be exploited. As long as her child was threatened, Teka wouldn't dare do anything to oppose the Sontarans.

"Move it!" the Sontaran barked at the three humanoids he and his fellow Sontarans had cornered. In response, Meridda picked up Sopea and, holding the child in her arms, stepped out into the corridor, holding her head up high, determined not to give the Sontarans the satisfaction of seeing that she was afraid of them. Not only that, but she had to stay strong for Sopea's sake. Adric, sensing that it would be better if he obeyed orders for once, followed her, putting his hands up as the Doctor had once shown him.

As soon as they were out in the corridor, Adric turned to Meridda and whispered: "I'm going to try to escape."

But Meridda shook her head. "It's too risky," she told him. "We must do as the Sontarans tell us and . . ."

She was cut off as the Sontaran nearest to her prodded her in the back with his gun. "Silence, female!" he snarled, completely disregarding the fact that Meridda had, until recently, been queen of this planet and that she was still technically queen dowager, even with Teka reduced to a puppet ruler. The Sontarans, of course, had no females of high rank, or any females at all; the fact that they reproduced through cloning meant they had no need for both genders. "And shut that brat up!" the Sontaran added, as Sopea started to cry.

"She's only a baby!" Meridda retorted, holding Sopea close to her in the hope that it might quieten the child. "Don't you have babies where you come from?" She tried to imagine what an infant Sontaran might look like, but all she could picture in her mind was a stocky, bald-headed warrior dressed in space armour and brandishing a gun.

"No, we do not! Half-forms have no military value. We Sontarans are bred to fight - we have no use for what you call "childhood". Now, get moving!"

There was no sense in arguing with a creature that had been bred for the sole purpose of being a soldier, especially when it was pointing a gun at you.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Pretending to co-operate with Vaak was the hardest thing Teka had ever done. Not only did she have to act as though she had been stripped of any real power, she also had to watch helplessly as more and more Sontaran troopers landed on Aneth. She could do nothing but wait and hope that the Doctor and Seth were able to rally the Anethans; the Sontarans had already paraded their hostages (including Meridda, Adric and Sopea) before her and warned her what would happen to them if she showed any sign of defiance.

Defiance was not in Teka's nature, but she was still afraid of what would happen if the Sontarans found out her co-operation with them was all an act. They were ruthless and warlike, perhaps even more so than the Skonnons, and were more than capable of killing her if the mood took them. Only the fact that they needed the Anethans for some purpose was keeping herself and her people alive, but she knew enough about the Sontarans to know that could not last forever. Once the Sontarans had obtained what they had come to Aneth for, the people would be just another obstacle to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

Teka looked down at her gown, which was almost the exact same shade of yellow as the uniforms she and the other young Anethans who had been part of the final tribute had been forced to wear for the journey to Skonnos. These had consisted of a simple shirt and trousers; the trouser legs were wider for the girls, but, other than that, the outfits were all identical, though Seth and Teka had been allowed to keep the symbols of their Royal status. For many young people of Aneth, these were the last clothes they would ever wear. And, needless to say, when Seth, Teka and the others had returned to Aneth following the defeat of the Nimons, one of the first things they had done was to burn the outfits, a symbolic act to finally end years of oppression at the hands of the Skonnons.

Seth and Teka had kissed for the first time as they and the others stood watching the bonfire, but they had first realised their feelings for each other when the Skonnon spacecraft was suspended in space after an overambitious attempt by the co-pilot to get home quickly caused the engines to blow . . .

* * *

_They were in almost total darkness, the ship having only auxiliary power left. Teka knew Seth still had hold of her arm and she was aware that one of the others was on her other side, though she could not tell who it was. From somewhere nearby, she heard one of the other girls - it sounded like Arlu, though she couldn't be sure - groaning. "Seth?" she ventured, wishing desperately for a source of light. "Are you all right?"_

_"Yes, I'm all right," Seth's voice said in reply. "What about the rest of you? Vando? Sedus?"_

_In response, the other two Anethan boys said they too were fine; neither of them was hurt in any way. Teka then asked after the girls, peering hopelessly into the darkness that pervaded the hold and made it difficult for any of the young Anethans to see their hands in front of their faces. It was a strange experience, having your eyes open but being able to see hardly anything, and Teka wondered if this was what it felt like to be blind._

_"I'm all right too," came Panne's voice._

_"So am I," added Dia. "Arlu got knocked out, but she's coming round. What happened, anyway?"_

_"I don't know," replied Teka. "But you'll protect us, won't you, Seth?" she added, reaching out and groping around for his hand. She found it, their fingers locked and they sat there in the dark, two teenagers taken from their home planet as part of a cruel Pact, stranded in the emptiness of space with only their fellow prisoners for company. But, though Teka was aware of the others, Seth was the only person who existed for her at that moment. Seth, the hero of Aneth . . ._

_"Of course I will," Seth replied, with more confidence than he felt. They were stranded goodness only knew how far from the nearest planetary system, imprisoned on board a spacecraft which had lost all but auxiliary power, a spacecraft which had once been part of the Skonnon battle fleet but was now used for shipping Aneth's annual tribute of hymetusite crystals and young people to Skonnos. None of them had asked to be here; six of them had been singled out by the Skonnon Selectors when they came to Aneth to choose the youngsters who would be in the tribute, while Seth was here on King Aigus's instructions, on a mission to kill the creature that was the main cause of Aneth's troubles. He had never asked to be a hero, but the fact that he was widely regarded as one was what had landed him in this position._

_But, as he and Teka held hands in the dark, Seth became aware of a new feeling stirring within him . . ._

* * *

The sound of a Sontaran marching into the room brought Teka back to the present and she looked up to see one of the clone warriors approaching with a piece of paper in his three-fingered hand. He thrust it into her hand without comment, save for a terse: "Sign it!" and waited for her to do as instructed.

"What is it?" Teka asked, hoping she might be allowed to read the paper through before she signed it. Or, failing that, at least allowed time to scan it so that she could get the general gist. She had caught a brief glimpse of the word "hymetusite" when the Sontaran handed the paper to her, but she had not had chance to read the rest of it. Hymetusite was the highly radioactive mineral which the Skonnons had extorted from Aneth and which the Nimon had used to power up the equipment it had used to build a space corridor linking Skonnos and Crinoth. And it was also an immensely powerful energy source, so if the Sontarans were after hymetusite . . .

"The order conscripting your people to work in the hymetusite mines," the Sontaran said shortly. "Sign it."

Teka slowly shook her head. "I can't," she said. "Not unless you guarantee the radiation won't harm them." Hymetusite was so radioactive that those who mined the mineral had to wear protective clothing at all times, but it was a valuable source of energy, so the Anethans were prepared to accept the risks involved in mining it. Processing hymetusite removed some of the radioactivity, but it was still too dangerous to handle with one's bare hands; the hymetusite shipped to Skonnos under the Pact had been contained in balls made out of a transparent material which protected those carrying them from being exposed to the radiation. For, as well as providing sustenance for the Nimon, the young Anethans in each tribute had been tasked with delivering the hymetusite.

But the Sontaran neither knew nor cared about any of this; all the mattered to him was ensuring that his race gained an advantage in their endless war against the Rutans. "The order came directly from General Stulve himself. You would do well to obey - or we will start killing our hostages." The tone in his voice left Teka in no doubt that he meant exactly what he said, though that was typical of the way Sontarans spoke. They prided themselves on being direct, on never attempting to bluff their opponents. Teka could only hope that this meant they were just as bad at spotting when someone else was bluffing them.

But the fact remained that the Sontarans were holding prisoners somewhere in the palace and that those prisoners included Meridda, Adric and Sopea. She could not allow any of the prisoners to be harmed, especially not little Sopea. But the alternative meant risking the lives of her people in the hymetusite mines, condemning them to the slavery they had so recently escaped. Had Aigus gone through a similar conflict of emotions when faced with the choice of either handing over seven young people or allowing the Skonnons to reconquer Aneth? She had no way of knowing, but she did know that, in order to keep up her pretence of co-operation, she would have to do as the Sontaran said and sign the order.

Besides, as long as the Doctor and Seth had managed to escape from the palace, there was still a chance the Sontarans could be defeated.

* * *

As he crawled down the conduit which led into the Lake of Silence, the Doctor suddenly became aware that Seth was not following him. Glancing back, he saw the young Anethan crouching several metres back, apparently too afraid to move. Claustrophobia, the Doctor thought, a physical reaction to being in a confined space which had doubtless been made worse by the pressure Seth was currently under. His planet was facing invasion for the second time in its recent history and, as with the Nimon, the burden of heroism had been dumped on his young shoulders. Barely out of his teens, he found himself having to live up to a reputation which many people much older than he was would struggle to fulfill.

Indeed, the Doctor and Romana had discussed that very subject in the wake of their encounter with the Nimons. In particular, the legends which Teka was going to build up around Seth and how he would have to spend the rest of his life trying to live up to them . . . The Doctor frowned; this was no time to be philosophising about such matters, not when a planet's entire future was at stake.

"Are you all right?" he asked, hoping Seth would be willing to talk about his troubles.

"It's just that . . . I've never been very good with confined spaces." Seth felt his face burning with embarassment as he confessed to the fear which had been with him since childhood, a fear he had never been able to confess to anyone, certainly not to Teka. "It has to do with my father," he added when the Doctor hadn't spoken for several seconds.

"Why? What does - or rather what did - Aigus have to do with it?"

"Nothing," Seth replied. "He wasn't really my father - I just made that up so I wouldn't be sent back home."

The Doctor had noticed that Seth bore very little resemblance to Aigus, but he had not thought anything of it as there was always the possibility that the young Anethan had taken after his mother. Now, however, Seth had told him that he was not a prince at all, not even an illegitimate prince born to one of Aigus's mistresses. But why had he made up such a story? In the Doctor's experience, anyone who was that desperate to avoid being sent home must have fled from something pretty terrible. Slowly, he coaxed the whole story out of Seth, the story of the beatings the young man had suffered as a child, the hours locked in a dark cupboard.

"And, then, I just couldn't take it any more." Seth was struggling to keep his voice steady. "So I ran away. I must have been about Adric's age . . ." He paused, sighing. "I spent the next couple of years on the road and that's when things started happening that made people think I was a hero. Then, when Aigus's men found me . . ."

"Yes, I think I see what you're getting at." The Doctor had no need to hear the rest of Seth's story; it was obvious that this was the point where the Anethan had claimed to be Aigus's son, a lie told by a desperate teenaged boy to avoid being sent back where he had come from. Unfortunately, Aigus had not only believed the story, he had died without ever learning the truth about his "son". The Doctor looked at Seth seriously for a moment. "Have you told anyone else?"

"Only Romana and Adric. I . . ." Seth hesitated. "I don't want Teka to find out - she thinks of me as a hero prince and that's what she fell in love with." He recalled how, during the journey to Skonnos, Teka had looked to him as a protector, as the hero who was going to free their people from the Pact.

"Well, if she really loves you, she won't care where you came from," the Doctor said. Privately, he thought Teka could do with a little advice similar to that which Sarah Jane had once given Queen Thalira of Peladon, advice about standing up for herself and not always looking to men for protection. Especially since she was now Queen of Aneth . . . But, right now, the Doctor had more pressing concerns to deal with, concerns involving a race of aggressively militaristic clones. "But that's all academic unless we can get rid of the Sontarans," he added. "Come on."

* * *

The Sontarans had herded their hostages into the seldom-used banqueting hall, imprisoning at least three dozen Anethans and one Alzarian in the room which was only used on special occasions. All around the room, people had been forced to sit down at the tables, an order which most of the Anethans had obeyed meekly. Perhaps it was their natural pacifism. Or perhaps it was the fact that the Sontarans, with their brutally militaristic approach to life, seemed uncomfortably close to the Skonnons. Whatever the reason, none of them had attempted to fight back, apart from a youth who wasn't much older than Adric. And his foolish courage had been "rewarded" with a blast from a Sontaran's gun.

Meridda, holding Sopea on her lap, and Adric had been forced to sit at the High Table, the table reserved for the Royal Family and their guests of honour. From here, they could see their fellow hostages sitting in unhappy silence as the Sontarans marched up and down, the clone warriors looking as though they would rather be doing something other than guarding hostages. But guarding hostages was what they had been ordered to do and they were prepared to do so in the name of the Sontaran Empire.

"I sat in this very chair at Seth and Teka's wedding banquet," Meridda remarked to Adric, after checking that the guards were at the other end of the hall. She was sitting in the chair to the right of the two ornate throne-like chairs at the centre of the table; normally, these were reserved for the reigning monarch and his or her consort, but, at an Anethan wedding, the bride and groom took presidence over everyone. And, as such, they had to take the most prominent seats. Meridda remembered the occasion well: Seth in the robes worn by high-ranking Anethan males on ceremonial occasions, Teka in a silver brocade dress, their heads wreathed with circlets of danpha, an Anethan plant similar to laurel.

Adric had never witnessed the wedding customs of other races, aside from the brief glimpse he had seen on the TARDIS scanner screen of Tremas and Kassia's wedding shortly before he and the Doctor visited Traken. On Alzarius, weddings were simple affairs. The couple wore their ordinary clothes, though the bride often hung a garland of marsh flowers around her neck, and the ceremony consisted of the couple standing in front of the First Decider, who would ask them a series of questions, one of which was whether they would promise to ensure that their children would continue to work towards the Embarkation. Though that would have to be altered now that the Alzarians had finally left on their journey to find a new home . . . After the union had been ratified by all three Deciders, the couple would share a meal with their immediate families. There were no customs about elaborate feasts for the whole community.

Adric couldn't help wondering how the Anethan ceremony differed from the one used by the Alzarians. But, before he could ask Meridda, a Sontaran drew level with the High Table and snarled the words: "No talking!"

Meridda looked down at Sopea, who was asleep in her arms, and sighed. "Doctor, where are you?" she thought.

* * *

The Doctor and Seth, the latter trying hard to forget how much confined spaces reminded him of his cruel father, had reached the end of the pipe to find it covered with a metal grating.

Seth crawled towards the grating and tried to push it free, only to find that it remained solidly in place, blocking their escape, preventing them from getting out of the palace and finding outside help. He sighed. "No good - I can't shift it."

"Rubbish!" retorted the Doctor, who was not about to let the small matter of a grating defeat him, not when an entire civilisation faced the prospect of being wiped out in a war that was not their own. "You just need the right tools for the job," he added, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. The screwdriver was a useful little device, one which had helped the Doctor get out of many tight corners. Originally designed as a hi-tech version of a hand-held screwdriver, it had since been modified and upgraded until there was almost nothing it couldn't do. Disrupt circuitry, detonate bombs, weld metal . . . It also came in useful for unscrewing bolts.

The Doctor manoeuvred himself into position beside Seth, a difficult task in such a confined space, and directed a pulse of energy from the screwdriver at the bolts holding the grating in place. Slowly, one at a time, the bolts unscrewed seemingly of their own accord. The Doctor worked methodically, mentally tuning out the sound of Seth's voice hissing instructions to "hurry up" in his ear; as he had said before the two of them entered this pipe, there were some things which could not be hurried.

Finally, however, the bolts had all been removed, enabling the grating to be pushed free easily. Once that was done, all the Doctor and Seth had to do was crawl through the opening and they would emerge in the Lake of Silence. Before they did so, however, the Doctor reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a device which looked similar to an oxygen mask, handing it to Seth, who looked at it curiously. "Hydrian breathing apparatus," the Doctor explained. "I transferred it from my coat pocket before we crawled in here." He showed Seth how to place the device, designed to enable a humanoid to breathe underwater without the need for a heavy oxygen tank, over his mouth and nose. "There. You ready?"

"But what about you?" Seth's words were slightly muffled by the device over his face.

"Respiratory bypass," replied the Doctor. "I can do without oxygen longer than you. Come on."

And, with that, the Doctor and Seth crawled out of the pipe and emerged in the Lake of Silence.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

So far, the Doctor and Seth had not encountered any problems in their attempt to escape from the palace and rally the citizens of Aneth against the Sontarans. The Doctor knew it would not be easy persuading a peace-loving race to take up arms, but there was little alternative. Superior force was the only thing Sontarans respected, the only thing that would persuade them to leave a planet alone. After defeating Styre on an Earth recovering from the effects of solar flares, the Doctor had informed the Sontaran Marshall to whom Styre had been answerable that the Sontarans' invasion plans had been captured and that, as a result, any move across the buffer zone by any Sontaran ship would result in the entire fleet being destroyed. This was only partly true, but it was enough to force the Sontarans to call off that particular invasion attempt.

However, with several Sontarans already on Aneth, the Doctor doubted such a bluff would work this time. No, if he wanted to save this planet from becoming another outpost of the Sontaran Empire, he would need the Anethans to help him. Somehow, he and Seth would have to convince them that the best way to deal with the Sontarans was to take up arms and drive the clone warriors from the planet; the alternative did not bear thinking about. Seth had said war played no part in Anethan tradition, but traditions could change and maybe it was time that tradition did.

Right now, the two of them were swimming underwater in the Lake of Silence, aiming for the surface. Seth was wearing the Hydrian breathing apparatus which the Doctor had given him, while the Doctor had utilised his race's ability to bypass their own respiratory systems, thereby reducing the need for oxygen. But they both needed to break the surface of the water - and soon; Seth's breathing apparatus was only good for half-an-hour and even a Time Lord could not do without oxygen indefinitely. Especially if they were engaged in any activity more strenuous than sitting down . . .

Fortunately, the Lake of Silence was well named, since it contained no monsters of the sort the Doctor had encountered in lakes on other planets. There were fish, but they were the ordinary run-of-the-mill type, not the sort that might make a meal of any humanoids foolish enough to venture into their domain. All in all, it looked as though the Doctor and Seth were going to make it to the surface without incident.

But, just he thought they were home free, the Doctor found his path blocked by some kind of woven mesh, from which no-one could escape without a knife or a sharp set of teeth - a fishing net. Seconds later, a muffled grunt beside him told him that Seth had also swum into the net. There was nothing either of them could do except wait as the ends of the net were brought together and they were lifted upwards.

* * *

Satisfied that most of the invasion plans were finally running smoothly, Vaak had returned to his ship to report to Stulve. "All is going according to plan, Sir," he said, standing to attention as he addressed his battalion leader. "The Anethan queen has accepted our sovereignty over this planet and her people have been enslaved. We will soon be able to start shipping the hymetusite out to the fleet."

"And what about the Doctor? Has he been eliminated?" There was an edge of impatience in Stulve's voice, suggesting that he was anxious to complete this mission and get back to the front lines as quickly as possible. No self-respecting Sontaran wanted to waste time with a planet full of pacifists when he could be leading his troops in a glorious battle. But Stulve dared not abandon the mission to Aneth until it was completed, even at the cost of his own life, especially if the Doctor was on the planet; the Time Lord had interfered with too many Sontaran battle plans already.

"Not as yet, Sir," replied Vaak.

"You were given specific orders that the Doctor was to be disposed of! Why have you not carried out those orders?"

"Sir, an attempt was made on the Doctor's life. However, it proved unsuccessful." Vaak bristled with anger as he recalled how the two Sontarans he had sent to ambush the Doctor had reported the success of their mission, only for him to later find himself confronted by the Doctor, still alive and apparently none the worse for wear. Those two would have to be dealt with; failure was not an option where Sontarans were concerned. And, he told himself, they would be made to feel the full disgrace of what they had done - or, rather, what they had not done; there would be no glorious death in battle for them. Just as soon as the mission to Aneth was successfully concluded . . .

"Then you must make another attempt - and make sure it's successful!" Stulve barked.

"Sir, the Doctor won't just walk within range of our guns."

"He will," Stulve said levelly, "if he thinks his companion is danger." Think like the enemy - that was one of the first lessons Stulve had learned after he was cloned. And, when it came to the Doctor, it was easy to predict what he would do if he believed his travelling companion was threatened. "The Doctor is currently travelling with a companion?" Stulve added after a moment's thought.

"Yes, a male half-form. He is among those we took hostage to ensure the queen's co-operation."

"Then go and fetch him!" And, with that command, Stulve abruptly cut the communications link.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Seth found themselves being unceremoniously dumped on the deck of a fishing boat. Glancing up from where they had landed, they quickly discovered that the crew of this boat consisted of half-a-dozen men, the one who appeared to be the leader standing slightly in front of his crew. He was the first to break the silence which followed. "Looks like we caught some strange fish today."

The Doctor bristled at this remark; he had been called many things in each of his lives, but no-one had ever compared him to a fish before. "Look!" he said impatiently. "Do we look like fish to you?" He picked himself up, nodding to Seth to do likewise. "In case you haven't noticed, there's a Sontaran task-force on this planet. I don't know what they're cooking up, but I can guarantee it'll be bad news for you. That's why I . . . we have got to stop them." He gestured round at each of the Anethans, before his gaze settled on Seth, who was just removing his breathing apparatus.

"And what exactly do you want us to do?" asked the leader, looking levelly at the Doctor and Seth. He recognised the latter as King Aigus's son, the one who had turned up around five years ago and was said to be the greatest hero Aneth had ever known, but the man, whose normally curly hair was currently plastered to his head by lake water, was unfamiliar to him. "And just who are you anyway?"

"That's the first sensible question you've asked," said the Doctor. "All right, I'm the Doctor, but I'm guessing you know who Seth is already." The six fishermen nodded, finding themselves somewhat overawed at being in the presence of the great hero of Aneth, the young man who was said to have defeated the Nimon and freed their people from the tyranny of the Skonnons. "Good. As for what I want you to do, I was rather hoping you'd help me send the Sontarans back where they came from. You do know who the Sontarans are?"

"Beings dedicated to perpetual war," replied the leader. "And there's no way to beat them, so, if they're on Aneth . . ."

The Doctor scowled; perhaps years of living in fear of the Skonnons had conditioned the Anethans to accept invasion should it come. He recalled how timid the young Anethans he and Romana had encountered on the transport to Skonnos had seemed, how all of them except Seth and Teka had hung back uncertainly when they first met the two Time Lords. But, this time, the Anethans would not be dealing with Skonnons or Nimons; they would be dealing with Sontarans, a race the Doctor had encountered (and defeated) in the past.

"Rubbish!" the Doctor retorted. "Of course the Sontarans can be beaten! I've beaten them myself. That's the thing about military nuts - it's very easy to predict what they'll do." In Styre's case, for example, the Doctor had challenged him to single combat, knowing that a Sontaran's sense of honour meant he would have to accept. But the Doctor's main reason for taking on Styre had been to wear him out and force him to return to his ship in order to re-energise. With that in mind, the Doctor had had Harry remove a vital component from Styre's ship, causing the Sontaran to be destroyed by his own energy supply.

"And just how do you defeat a Sontaran?"

"Small vent in the back of the neck," the Doctor replied. "That's the one weak spot they have." But it wasn't an easy weakness to exploit, as the Sontarans were careful never to expose it to an enemy; indeed, Linx, a Sontaran the Doctor had met in Medieval England, had boasted that it was a strength, since it meant his people could never turn their backs on their foes. Ironically, it had been an arrow shot by a local archer that finally took Linx out while he was distracted with preparing his ship for take-off and had momentarily exposed this single weak spot.

* * *

There was a sudden commotion in the banqueting hall where the hostages were being held, as two Sontarans suddenly marched in. Without saying a word, they strode towards the High Table and halted directly in front of Adric, pointing their blasters at him. "On your feet, half-form!" one of them snarled, squeezing his trigger slightly to show Adric what would happen if he failed to obey.

Adric instinctively looked to the Doctor for help, only to recall moments later that the Doctor wasn't here, having gone with Seth to try and rally the Anethans against the Sontaran invaders. He was just wondering what he was supposed to do in this situation, feeling lost with no Doctor to guide him, when Meridda called his name in a loud whisper. Turning his head, he saw her nod slightly and, guessing she meant he should do as the Sontarans ordered, he slowly got to his feet.

The moment he did so, both Sontarans got behind him and prodded him in the back with their blasters. "Move it!" one of them snarled in the sort of tone only someone with a great deal of reckless courage would dare to disobey or question.

Adric, however, did have a great deal of reckless courage, a trait which would ultimately have fateful consequences, though not before he had seen a lot more of N-Space. "Why?" he asked, turning to look at the Sontarans, trying not to flinch at the sight of their blasters. "Where are you taking me?"

The only answer he received was a sudden shock from the blaster held by one of the Sontarans, who had adjusted its setting to stun rather than maim or kill. "Do not ask questions!" the Sontaran barked, as Adric cried out in pain. Meridda could do nothing but watch helplessly and hold Sopea so that she could not see what was happening; if she tried to interfere, she was sure to get the same - or worse. Besides, what could she do to help when she had a young child to look after? "I got my orders from Vaak and he got his orders from our battalion leader," the Sontaran went on. "So, remember, resistance is futile."

Adric forced himself to suppress a smile. Even now, the Doctor and Seth must be organising resistance among the Anethans.

* * *

Adric might have been slightly less optimistic had he known that the only people the Doctor and Seth had encountered so far were six fishermen who had no experience of war and, what was more, seemed willing to let their planet be conquered. "Doctor, we've been talking for the last half-hour," their leader was saying. "And the answer is still the same. We Anethans are not a warlike people. None of us have taken up arms in the past and none of us have any intention of doing so now." Behind him, his five crew-mates murmured in agreement.

The Doctor sighed, realising this was going to be a lot harder than he thought. And every second he wasted here brought the Sontarans one second closer to completing their mission, one second closer to the time when Aneth would be of no further use to them. "Listen . . ." The Doctor paused, realising he did not even know the leader's name.

"Neron," replied the leader, guessing the meaning of the pause.

"Listen, Neron," the Doctor said, "you Anethans are known for being a peace-loving race, correct?" Then, without waiting for a reply, he hurried on, hoping his words would be enough to convince Neron and his men to help him. "Which is perfectly fine as long as everyone else feels that way. But the Sontarans . . . Different kettle of fish altogether. All they're interested in is gaining an advantage in their endless war against the Rutans - and they don't care what they do to get it." He looked at Neron seriously, silently willing the Anethan to make the right decision. "You remember what it was like before? Living in fear of the Skonnons? Being forced to send your young people as tribute?"

Neron nodded slowly. "We had no choice. The Skonnons and the Nimon would have destroyed us had we not obeyed."

"Ha!" the Doctor scoffed, becoming exasperated at Neron's passive acceptance of his people's fate. "The Nimons would have destroyed all life in the Universe if they hadn't been stopped. You don't know them like Seth and I do. They were parasites who swarmed from planet to planet, bleeding each one dry . . ." He paused, recalling what Romana had told him about what she found on Crinoth when she was accidentally transported there, how the Nimons had killed all the Crinothians except a man named Sezom who had sacrificed himself to help her escape. "Believe me, the Universe is a lot better off without them. But," he added grimly, "we're not dealing with Nimons this time, we're dealing with Sontarans. And, with or without your help, I intend to put a stop to them."

"And how exactly do you expect us to help you?" asked Neron, gesturing round at his crew. "We're simple fishermen who know nothing of creatures like the Sontarans."

"Then you'd better learn - and fast. Because, once the Sontarans have what they came here for, this planet will mean nothing to them. So they'll destroy it or turn it into one of their clone worlds - either way, I wouldn't fancy sticking around to see the outcome."

* * *

Seth had remained silent throughout, wondering if the Doctor would bring up that stuff about him being the great hero of Aneth, a title he had never asked for but, it seemed, he was stuck with for the rest of his life. But he suddenly felt compelled to speak out, though he was not entirely sure why. "Please," he said, "if you won't fight for yourselves, fight for those you love. I don't care what happens to me, but I have a wife and a small daughter. And, unless we stop the Sontarans . . ." He paused, thinking of how Teka was currently pretending to co-operate with the invaders. There was no way she could keep up the pretence forever; the Sontarans were bound to catch on sooner or later and, when that happened, Teka would be in serious trouble.

"Look," Seth said, trying to sound as patient as he could. "King Aigus is dead. Teka is pretending to work with the Sontarans, but they're bound to find out it's all an act. Would you have them kill two monarchs in a row?" As he spoke, he realised he did not know how he would cope if Teka was killed. Teka, who had always had such faith in him, who had been certain that he would defeat the Nimon. He recalled the overwhelming fear he had felt when he lost her in the complex on Skonnos, the dreadful moment when he found her and the others sent as part of the final tribute in the Nimon's "larder". He thought he had lost her then, but the Doctor had assured him that she and the others were simply paralysed.

"Well done, Seth," said the Doctor. "Spoken like a true hero of Aneth. I just hope it will convince them," he added, knowing from experience that words were not always enough. But, if he and Seth could get Neron and his band of fishermen onside, the eight of them might be able to break back into the palace and free those the Sontarans held hostage. And that would provide him with a ready-made army. The Doctor did not like the idea of using violence if it could be avoided, but, when it came to races like the Sontarans, there was little choice.

The six fishermen gathered in a huddle and began whispering together, before Neron emerged to announce their decision. "Very well, Doctor," he said. "We are all agreed. Our people have lived in fear for long enough and, while we wish we didn't have to . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the Doctor said, waving his hand impatiently. "Be a good chap and come to the point. I haven't got all century, you know."

" . . . we know what must be done," Neron continued, ignoring the interuption. "Therefore, we will help you drive the Sontarans from Aneth."


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Having obtained the services of Neron and his crew, the Doctor and Seth had accompanied the six men to their fishing village. The Doctor had hoped he might be able to get the villagers to raise an army against the Sontarans; true the Anethans were a peaceful race, but this was a fishing village and that meant there were probably a few harpoons and other sharp objects around. Objects that might come in handy for piercing a probic vent . . .

But, on arriving in the village, the first thing that struck the Doctor was how quiet it was; in fact, it was so quiet that he instinctively knew something bad must have happened. There were no people in the village square, no groups of women chatting to each other, no children playing. All was silence, giving the illusion that the Doctor, Seth and the fishermen were the only people left on the planet Aneth. For a moment, the Doctor was reminded of the time he had landed on 22nd Century Earth to find it in the grip of the Daleks; London, where the TARDIS had materialised, had seemed just as deserted as this Anethan village was now.

"Where is everybody?" asked Seth, voicing what all of them were thinking. "Do you think the Sontarans . . . did something to them?"

"Perhaps they haven't seen us yet," suggested the Doctor. With that, he walked up to the nearest house and hammered on the front door. "Hello!" he called. "Anyone at home? Don't all answer at once!" But there was no reply, not even an irritated voice telling him to "go away". The Doctor stepped away from the door and turned to Seth and the fishermen. "No-one home," he told them, though his words conveyed far more than this simple piece of information. Not only were the people who lived in this house not at home, no-one in the whole village was at home. The Doctor had an uneasy feeling about this, a feeling that made his hair curl - not that his current incarnation needed it.

A couple of hours later, a thorough search of the village had confirmed that it was completely deserted. Not only that, but none of houses had been locked up, suggesting that the people who lived here had been forced to leave very suddenly. The Doctor had an uneasy feeling he knew what . . . who had forced them out; the Sontarans' invasion of Aneth must have moved up a gear and that meant time was even shorter than he had feared. Add to that the fact that he had not seen Adric for some time and . . .

Just then, Neron's voice cut through the Doctor's train of thought. "Doctor, what happened here?"

"The Sontarans happened," the Doctor replied grimly. So much for raising an army to drive Vaak and his underlings off the planet. "Right, time for Plan B then," he added. Of course, he didn't really have a Plan B as yet, but, with his talent for thinking on his toes (one of the expressions which Adric often found puzzling) he should be able to work something out. Already, the faint outline of an idea was forming in his mind. "Seth, how far is Space Control from here?"

* * *

Seth led the Doctor and the six fishermen to the vast silver tower that served as Space Control for the planet Aneth. The Doctor hoped the people manning the tower might be able to, at the very least, prevent any more Sontaran ships from coming in. There were enough Sontarans on the planet already - more than enough, in fact. With their single-minded determination and obsession with achieving military glory at all costs, even a single Sontaran could threaten an entire planet. Somehow, whatever they had planned for Aneth would have to be stopped, provided it wasn't already too late.

But, the moment the eight of them arrived at Space Control, it became obvious that something was seriously wrong.

The first thing which greeted them when they entered the tower's main control room was a bank of computers with no-one operating them. The monitors were switched on, but all the work stations were empty; there was no sign of anyone watching the screens for signs of any untoward activity. And that instantly put the Doctor on alert; a place like this should be manned round the clock, so where was everyone? Like the fishing village, Space Control appeared to be completely deserted, though the equipment continued to function. It was as if everyone had simply popped out for a moment, but the Doctor instinctively knew there was more to it than that. And, if the Sontarans were involved, it could only bode ill for the people who should have been manning the tower.

"What happened to everyone?" Seth asked. He had never known Space Control to be left unmanned before; there was always someone keeping watch for any hostile craft approaching the planet. But all the posts were currently deserted and, he suspected, they had been deserted for some time. This must be how Vaak and the other Sontarans who had arrived since then had been able to land on Aneth unchallenged. But what had happened to the people who should have been monitoring the skies above Aneth? Why hadn't the palace been warned when Vaak's craft was detected?

But, when he and the others approached the monitors, he received the answer to his question. And it was far from pleasant.

Space Control had not been deserted at all; the men and women who worked there lay piled up in the far corner, pushed aside like a pile of rubbish waiting to be cleared away. Within seconds, the Doctor was kneeling beside one of the bodies, examining it to see if there was anything that could be done, though he doubted there was. Moments later, he looked up and shook his head, silently confirming what he had feared. Seth moved closer to the Doctor, then recoiled as he recognised the body the Time Lord had been examining. "Vando," he whispered. "He was part of the last tribute to Skonnos."

At the same instant, the Doctor also recognised the young Anethan man lying dead at his feet. He was indeed one of the seven young people he and Romana had met while exploring the old Skonnon battleship which was being used to deliver the tribute the Nimon demanded. Except for Seth and Teka, however, the two Time Lords had never really got to know any of the young Anethans; this was the first time the Doctor had learned any of their names. "I'm afraid nothing can be done for him now, poor chap," the Doctor told Seth, reaching forward and closing Vando's eyes. But, he added silently, at least something could be done to rid Aneth of the Sontarans - the question was, what?

* * *

"At least we now know why we weren't warned about Vaak," Seth said as he and the others left Space Control. "But what happened in there?" He recalled the empty workstations, the computers with no-one monitoring them, the bodies piled up in the corner. None of the corpses had shown any sign of how they died, but he knew people did not drop dead for no reason; something, or someone, must have killed them.

"Take one guess," the Doctor replied. He was about to toss the end of his scarf over his shoulder when he remembered that he had removed his coat and scarf before he and Seth entered the pipe which led into the Lake of Silence. He made a mental note to retrieve them both at the first opportunity. "I think," he added in a low voice, "you've got a traitor in your midst, someone who's been making it easy for the Sontarans to invade." He did not add that he suspected Lero was the traitor; aside from anything else, he had no evidence against the man other than a strong suspicion stemming from Lero's determination to prove Adric was responsible for Rilph's death. However, if his suspicions were correct - and they usually were - he knew Lero was bound to reveal himself sooner or later.

"But who would do that?" asked Seth. Surely no Anethan would want to see their planet conquered, especially when they had finally been freed from the tyranny of Skonnos only a few years ago. Even his father, cruel as he had been, would never have betrayed his people like this.

The Doctor frowned. There were rogue elements in nearly every race, but he knew it would be difficult for Seth to accept that one of his fellow Anethans could have sold out like this when they knew what planetary conquests generally meant for those on the receiving end. Slavery, denial of rights, possibly even genocide . . . The Sontarans were, the Doctor knew from past experience, capable of all three, though they would not move to wipe the Anethans out as long as they were of use to them. That, at least, should allow time to find out what the Sontarans were up to and, hopefully, work out how to stop them.

"Someone who's been promised a large reward," the Doctor said in reply to Seth's question. And, he added silently, whoever it was (namely Lero if his suspicions were correct) must have been gullible enough to fall for it. In his experience, traitors were generally in it for the promised rewards, rewards which they rarely lived to collect. The sort of beings who made deals with traitors were generally the sort who could be counted on to renege on that deal and kill the person with whom they had been dealing. Either that or the traitor got their just desserts some other way.

Right now, however, his main priority was finding out what the Sontarans' plans were. As he had once told Harry, the clone warriors never did anything that did not have some military purpose, particularly when it came to their endless war with the Rutans. They would never have bothered with Aneth unless the planet was of strategic importance, unless it contained something the Sontarans needed. All right, so what did Aneth have that a race of war-mongering clones might decide was worth exploiting?

"Seth," the Doctor said, looking directly at the young Anethan, "does your planet have anything that the Sontarans might be interested in? Anything that could be used as a weapon?"

Seth paused, frowning. "Well, there are the hymetusite mines. And hymetusite is a powerful energy source," he added, recalling how the Nimon had demanded crystals of the highly radioactive mineral, crystals which it had used to provide energy for the hyperspace tunnel linking Skonnos and Crinoth. And, if hymetusite was a powerful energy source, it could also be used as a powerful weapon. Just the sort of thing which might interest a race like the Sontarans . . .

"Of course!" The Doctor snapped his fingers as the pieces slotted into place. He should have guessed as much all along; building (or attempting to build) a hymetusite bomb was just the sort of thing the Sontarans would do, especially if they thought it might give them an advantage against the Rutans. And, with their single-minded determination to win their endless war with their old enemies, the fact that hymetusite was one of the most radioactive substances in existence would be of little concern to them. All they would be able to see was a chance to wipe the Rutans out once and for all; to a Sontaran, anything was justified provided it was done in the name of war.

* * *

Teka, meanwhile, could only watch helplessly as her people were forced to help the Sontaran war effort, put to work as slaves in the hymetusite mines. Right now, three of the Sontarans were giving her a "guided tour", escorting her around the mines at gunpoint. She could see men, women, even some children labouring to extract the highly radioactive crystals, none of them wearing the protective clothing which the Anethans normally used when mining hymetusite. As Teka and the three Sontarans drew level with one work party, a young man suddenly dropped the bucket of rocks he was carrying and sank to his knees, gasping for breath.

Teka knew what was wrong, though she had never seen it for herself. Hymetusite poisoning, the result of prolonged, unprotected exposure to hymetusite - and this young man would not be the only one to suffer its effects before the Sontarans were through here. Unless something was done, it would not be long before more and more Anethans began to succumb and there was nothing Teka could do to prevent it; if she intervened on her people's behalf, the Sontarans would know she was only pretending to co-operate with them. And that would endanger the lives of all the hostages, including Sopea, who were being held in the banqueting hall.

So she could do nothing but watch as one of the Sontarans marched over to the young man and pointed his gun at him. "Get up!" he barked. "Or are you Anethans so weak that you can't do a day's work?"

The young man groaned and struggled to haul himself up, only for each attempt to end with him collapsing once more. In the end, the Sontaran raised his gun and, with a well-placed blast, ensured that he would never get up again. At the same instant, Teka let out an involuntary scream at the sight of this callous act of murder, a scream which prompted all three Sontarans to glare at her.

"You didn't have to do that," Teka said, forcing herself to keep her voice level and resisting the urge to add that Seth would soon come and set everyone free. She was still supposed to be co-operating with the Sontarans and she was well aware of what would happen if they suspected it was all a pretence. She must not say or do anything that could, as the Doctor might have said, give the game away.

"I was merely eliminating a weakling," the Sontaran told her. "He was unable to do what was demanded of him - therefore, he was of no further use." A typical Sontaran attitude - the Anethans were only of use as long as they could provide the clone warriors with the hymetusite they needed to power their latest weapon. As soon as that weapon was completed and ready for transportation to the latest battle front in the war between the Sontarans and the Rutans, those who had been put to work in this mine would face the same fate as the young man who had just been shot. If none of them died from hymetusite poisoning first . . .

* * *

The Doctor couldn't help wondering why he hadn't thought of the hymetusite mines himself - perhaps he'd grown too used to Romana's flashes of brilliance. After all, an immensely rich energy source like hymetusite was just the sort of thing the Sontarans would try to exploit if they thought it could be used against the Rutans. And, if everyone had been conscripted to work in the mines, that would explain why the fishing village had been deserted. If the Doctor knew the Sontarans - and he had encountered them often enough to be familiar with their methods - they were almost certainly working on some kind of super-weapon. A hymetusite bomb . . .

"Doctor?" Seth's voice cut through the Doctor's train of thought. "What are we going to do?"

"Well, for one thing, we've got to put a stop to the Sontarans' plans," the Doctor replied. "If they got their grubby little hands on enough hymetusite, they could hold the whole galaxy to ransom." And that, he realised, meant he and the others would have to find a way of getting into the hymetusite mines, freeing the Anethans enslaved there and persuading them to join forces with him and drive the Sontarans off the planet. It would not be easy - the Anethans were not natural warriors - but there seemed to be no other way.

"But how?" Seth demanded. "There's only eight of us. There's probably a whole army of Sontarans here by now." To say nothing of the fact that all this would only add to his heroic reputation, a reputation he had neither asked for nor wanted. Right now, he felt about as confident as he had back on the Skonnon ship when he had confided to Romana how he really felt about his mission.

"Oh, there's always a way." The Doctor had succeeded against seemingly insurmountable odds often enough to know that no enemy was truly invincible. There was always some weakness that could be exploited - such as the Sontarans' single-minded obsession with military glory. Indeed, the Doctor had used that very weakness against Styre, challenging him to hand-to-hand combat; while the Sontaran was distracted, Harry had sabotaged his ship. However, Styre had been only one Sontaran; if what Seth said was correct, there could be a whole army of them on Aneth at present. "Trouble is, I haven't found it yet," the Doctor added, well aware that every second he and the Anethans continued talking wasted precious time.

Seth looked as though he was about to reply, but, before he could do so, something interupted him.

"Doctor! Doctor, the Sontarans have got me! They're going to . . ." The voice was cut off by an agonised scream, but not before the Doctor recognised whose voice it was. Adric - at some point since the Doctor left him with Meridda and Sopea, the Sontarans must have taken him. And, from the sound of it, one of the Sontarans was subjecting the boy to the same sadistic treatment that had been inflicted on Aigus. There was no time to lose; whatever the Sontarans' plans regarding the hymetusite were, they would have to wait. Saving Adric was far more important.

"Come on! Come on!" the Doctor shouted, hurrying in the direction the shouts were coming from, as the Anethans followed him. If any of the Sontarans harmed Adric in any way, the Doctor would see to it that they were made to pay for what they had done. Invading a planet because it had something the Sontarans wanted to exploit in their endless war against the Rutans was bad enough, but this was personal. The Doctor knew from past experience what the Sontarans were capable of and he was not about to allow them to hurt his companion. As Adric cried out again, the Doctor increased his speed; his one thought was to reach the boy before it was too late.

* * *

Presently, the Doctor, Seth and the six fishermen reached a small hut, which stood in splendid isolation on the top of a hill. The building was windowless, but the Doctor could clearly hear the sounds that were coming from within. Voices, mostly Sontaran, occasionally punctuated by Adric's call for help. There was not a second to lose.

"Seth and Neron," the Doctor said, after quickly assessing the situation, "I'll need you to help me get Adric out of there." K-9 and his nose laser might have been useful here, he thought to himself, but he would have to make do with what he had. "The rest of you, make for the palace - we'll meet you there."

The fishermen looked at each other doubtfully, before one of them voiced what they were all thinking. "What if we run into the Sontarans?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, they'll be too busy with their plans; Sontarans, as I've said before, are very single-minded." Which should give the Anethans a slight advantage, provided he could organise them into a proper resistance movement. "But, just in case you do meet one, try to disable him with a blow to the back of the neck. That area is a Sontaran's only weak spot, but you're going to have to get in close. You think you can do it?"

"We'll try," the man who had spoken before said. But he still looked somewhat doubtful.

"Good - off you go then," the Doctor said, before any of the fishermen could raise any more objections. Time was of the essence here and could not be wasted. The Doctor watched as the five of them headed in the direction of the palace, then turned to Seth and Neron. "Right," he said, having made a quick examination of the door and noted that a good shove should be enough to get it open, "on the count of three . . . Three!" And, with that, he, Seth and Neron charged towards the hut, ready to break the door down. Seconds before he made contact with the door, the thought that this was a little _too_ easy flashed through the Doctor's mind. But, by then, it was too late.

Bursting into the hut with the two Anethans following in his wake, the Doctor saw a solitary figure seated in a chair. Though the single room was only dimly lit, there was enough light to reveal that the figure was that of a male humanoid. Telling Seth and Neron to stay close to him, the Doctor moved closer, taking a small torch out of his trouser pocket and shining it in the direction of the person in the chair. It was then that he realised something was wrong, seriously wrong; the person in the chair was not Adric.

It was Lero.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

The Doctor, Seth and Neron looked at each other in disbelief, then back at Lero who sat with a satisfied smile on his face. The sort of smile worn by someone who has succeeded in tricking someone else . . .

After a silence which seemed to stretch on to infinity, Seth spoke. "But that was Adric's voice we heard." He looked at the Doctor, silently asking the Time Lord to confirm that this was true, that they had not been hearing things. But, before the Doctor could say anything, a curtain at the far end of the hut was moved aside and three Sontarans (including Vaak) emerged, their blasters raised ready to fire. It took the Doctor a matter of moments to realise what had happened; somehow, Lero must have been able to imitate Adric's voice so perfectly that it was impossible to distinguish from the real thing. And that meant he had walked straight into a trap, dragging Seth and Neron with him.

Voice imitation - one of the oldest tricks in the book. The Doctor was no stranger to it, either; the leader of the giant spiders on Metebelis III had tricked him by pretending to be Sarah Jane. And it was becoming increasingly obvious that he had just fallen for it again. He should have checked first, asked a question which (out of all the people on Aneth) only the real Adric would know the answer to, instead of just rushing in blindly. What was that Earth expression? Fools rush in? Yes, that was it. Well, he was a fool and he'd just rushed straight into trouble - again.

"We've been expecting you, Doctor," Vaak said, levelling his gun.

The Doctor made no attempt to pretend he was pleased to see any of the three Sontarans. "Where's Adric?" he demanded. His voice was dangerously quiet, a sure sign that he was itching to unleash his fury on them; if they had harmed Adric in any way . . . "We heard his voice - now, where is he?!"

Vaak regarded the Doctor closely, then lowered his gun. "You heard your companion's voice, yes. However, it was not your companion speaking." He turned to Lero, who, the Doctor now released was wearing what appeared to be a microphone headset. "Show him."

And Lero spoke into the microphone - in a voice which matched Adric's exactly. "Doctor, the Sontarans have got me! They're going to . . ." Abruptly, the voice coming from Lero's mouth changed, taking on Vaak's clipped tones. " . . . lure you into a trap!" The effect was uncanny; it might have been Vaak himself, or at least another Sontaran, speaking. "And it looks like it worked," Lero added, removing his headset and speaking in his own voice.

* * *

Vaak stepped forward and took the headset from Lero. "As you will shortly die, you won't be able to use what I am about to say against me," he said, drawing himself up to his full height. "But this is a Voice Imitation Device. As you are no doubt aware, every sentient creature has a unique vocal pattern. However, as you just saw, the VID records these patterns, which can then be copied by anyone who speaks into the microphone. Thus, it is a useful device if you want to take advantage of your enemy's heroic nature. And it can be adjusted to fit the head of a Sontaran or a humanoid." He nodded towards Lero. "Such as this male."

Lero got up and performed a somewhat sycophantic bow in Vaak's direction. "Thank you, Lord Vaak." The Doctor gave a derisive snort as he heard the Anethan guard address the Sontaran Commander as "Lord Vaak", but Lero ignored it. "But I believe there's the matter of the reward you promised me," Lero added. "For helping you."

Hearing this left the Doctor in no doubt that his suspicions had been correct, that Lero had been working with the Sontarans. He must have killed those on duty at Space Command so that Vaak's ship could land unchallenged, so that most of the Anethans would not realise they were being invaded until it was too late. From what Lero had just said, the Sontarans must have promised him a large reward for helping them - and there was little doubt in the Doctor's mind what that "reward" would be. Sure enough . . .

"You want your reward? Then here it is!" And, with that, Vaak nodded to one of the other Sontarans, who turned his blaster on Lero, shooting him full in the chest. Lero staggered for a moment, then slumped to the floor of the hut and lay still, an expression of utter disbelief permanently etched on his face. The Doctor had seen that expression many times before, on the faces of those power-hungry or gullible enough to think they could become allies of races like the Daleks, the Cybermen or the Sontarans. There were races that could never be entirely trusted, races that only formed alliances as long as it suited their purposes. And anyone foolish enough to agree to such an alliance would find themselves dead once they had outlived their usefulness; races who formed false alliances generally had little, if any, respect for the sanctity of life.

"And now for the rest of you," Vaak added, as the Doctor, Seth and Neron looked down at Lero's body. The three Sontarans raised their blasters, but, before they could fire, the Doctor gave his sonic screwdriver a surreptitious squeeze. Immediately, a high-pitched note pierced the air, the same note the Doctor had used to stop the Sontarans from killing any more hostages. And the effect was the same as on that occasion; all three Sontarans were left clutching their heads, temporarily immobilised. The Doctor quickly snatched up the VID; the device might be useful later.

"Back to the palace! Come on!" he shouted, shepherding Seth and Neron out of the hut. Though his suspicions about Lero had just been confirmed, this trick had cost valuable time, time the Anethans could ill afford to lose. If his theory about the hymetusite bomb was true, the Sontarans would have to be stopped before the device was completed; once that had happened, the Anethans would be of no further use and would be dealt with accordingly. They might even be used to test the effectiveness of the bomb and that was something the Doctor could not allow. He could not allow an entire planet of innocent men, women and children to be sacrificed to the Sontaran cause, not if it could be avoided.

* * *

"Doctor," Seth said as the three of them made their way back to the palace, "what was that all about?"

"Well, for one thing, we now know the identity of your traitor," the Doctor replied, not mentioning that he had had his suspicions about Lero from the moment the Anethan accused Adric of killing Rilph. Lero had seemed a little too keen to pin the blame on the boy, as if he was trying to divert attention from his own double-dealing. The Doctor had no way of knowing how long the Sontarans had been preparing for their invasion of Aneth, but, if he knew the clone warriors, they must have been waiting until the time was right before they launched their attack. No doubt, Lero had been keeping them informed of developments on the planet.

"Lero? But why? He's been . . . I mean, he _had_ been a palace guard for years."

The Doctor shrugged. "Make your own guess. But I'd say they must have promised him some sort of reward - and he was gullible enough to believe them." And, like most traitors, Lero had ultimately been paid in kind; Vaak, having no further use for him, had killed him with the ruthlessness typical of a Sontaran Commander. In the Sontaran's war-obsessed philosophy, Lero had never been anything more than a tool, a means to an end, something to be disposed of once he had served his purpose. Which, it seemed, had involved making it easier for the Sontarans to invade Aneth. The Doctor would never know what had motivated Lero to betray his people, especially when many Anethans still remembered what it was like to see your planet taken over by a war-mongering race, but that hardly mattered now.

What mattered was mobilising the Anethans to get the Sontarans off the planet before it was too late. That and finding out where Adric was . . .

* * *

Adric was currently being held in the cells, albeit not in the same cell where he and the Anethan Royal Family had been imprisoned earlier. This time, the Sontarans were taking no chances; Vaak had ordered that a guard be kept on the cell at all times to make sure the young Alzarian couldn't escape again. Though he could not see what was on the other side of the door, Adric had no doubt that there was a Sontaran out there right now, a bald-headed warrior clad in black space armour who lived only to fight.

He recalled being brought down here by the two Sontarans who had taken him from the banqueting hall, being forced to put on some sort of headset. One of the Sontarans had then pointed a strange device at him; he thought it was a weapon at first, but all it did was make it impossible to resist answering any question put to him truthfully. This, unfortunately, had included the fact that Teka was only pretending to co-operate with the Sontarans and, though he barely knew the young Anethan woman, he found himself wondering what the Sontarans would do to her now.

"It'll be my fault if they hurt her," he thought out loud. "I shouldn't haven't told them she was . . ."

He was interupted by the sound of the door being unlocked, followed by Teka being shoved roughly into the cell. "See where lying to the Glorious Sontaran Army gets you?" Even if Adric hadn't been able to see the Sontaran standing in the doorway, the clipped tone of voice would have given him away. "You'll stay here until Commander Vaak decides how to deal with you!" And, with that, the Sontaran closed the door and locked it, leaving the two young people in the cell to listen to the sound of his footsteps marching away from their prison. Sontarans never merely walked anywhere; they always marched or, if their rank was high enough, swaggered.

Teka and Adric exchanged glances.

"I'm sorry," Adric said after a pause which lasted several seconds. "This is my fault." And he told her all about the Sontarans who had taken him from the banqueting hall, who had forced him to put on "a sort of headset with a microphone attached", who had used some sort of device on him that made it impossible for him to resist answering their questions truthfully. "And then they locked me in here," he concluded.

Teka regarded him in silence. It sounded as though he was blaming himself for the fact that her pretence of co-operating with the Sontarans had been discovered. She had no idea what would happen to her, to all the Anethans, but, even now, her faith in Seth remained unshaken. "We mustn't give up," she told Adric. "Seth and the Doctor will get us out of here, you'll see."

"And if they can't?" Adric walked over to the cell door. "I don't know what the Sontarans are planning, but we've got to find a way of escaping by ourselves." But a quick inspection of the cell told them that escaping would be easier said than done this time. Unlike the cell they had been held in earlier, this one contained no pipe leading into the Lake of Silence, so, even though they did not have Sopea to consider this time, there was no way they could escape via the lake. That left the door, a door which they both knew had a Sontaran waiting on the other side. A Sontaran, moreover, who had doubtless been given orders to kill them if they tried to escape - and they both knew how seriously the Sontarans took their orders.

* * *

Vaak groaned as he came to his senses, then, remembering that he was a Sontaran Commander, snapped right back into military mode. Back on his feet within moments, he surveyed the scene before him, taking in the dead Anethan lying on the floor. "Fool!" he thought out loud, recalling how Lero had been prepared to sell out his own people for the sake of the reward which Vaak had promised. Of course, Vaak had conveniently "forgotten" to mention that Lero's "reward" would be finding himself on the wrong end of a Sontaran blaster. He had, quite simply, outlived his usefulness and had been disposed of accordingly. Quickly and efficiently - that was the best way to get rid of those who were of no further use to the Sontarans' cause, or who stood in the way of that same cause.

Speaking of which, the Doctor was still at large, having escaped another attempt on his life. That was a situation that could not be allowed to continue. "Get up!" Vaak ordered his two underlings, who still lay on the floor. His already small eyes were narrowed dangerously.

Bred to obey the commands of a higher-ranked Sontaran, the pair climbed to their feet and stood to attention as Vaak began barking out orders.

"The Doctor has evaded us again. General Stulve issued direct orders for his elimination, orders which have not yet been carried out! If we do not find the Doctor and make sure the next attempt on his life is successful, we will all die." And, to a Sontaran, the only death worse than execution for failing to carry out orders was succumbing to the feebleness of old age. To die by any means that did not further the Sontarans' cause was considered shameful, but those were the most shameful of all and Vaak meant to avoid them at all costs. He was going to do whatever it took to make sure his death would befit a Sontaran Commander; making sure Stulve's orders regarding the Doctor were carried out was only the first step.

The next was getting rid of Aneth's rulers. Though he had planned to keep Teka alive and use her as a puppet ruler for as long as the Anethans were of use, that was out of the question now. Under the influence of a Sontaran mind key, Adric had revealed that she had merely been pretending to co-operate with him; not only that, but the Doctor had put her up to it. That perfidious Doctor who had scuppered more than one of the Sontarans' past battle strategies - both he and Teka would learn the fate which awaited anyone who opposed the forces of the planet Sontar.

* * *

The Doctor, Seth and Neron had managed to reach the palace without incident and, along with Neron's men, were now faced with the problem of how to get inside. "How are we going to get past him?" Seth whispered, pointing to the Sontaran standing guard at the main entrance. A position which had until recently been occupied by Captain Rilph . . .

"Oh, the usual way," the Doctor replied. "Walk up to him like we own the place." He drew himself up to his full height and prepared to led the small party of Anethans towards the palace, the palace which, from the look of it, was firmly in Sontaran hands. The Doctor had no idea what he would find when he got inside, but he hoped it was not too late to put a stop to the Sontarans' plans. Thanks to the trick with the VID, he had already wasted valuable time, time which the planet Aneth could not afford to lose. Provided it was not already too late, he would have to mobilise the Anethans into some sort of fighting force, not to mention finding Teka and Sopea somewhere safe.

The former could be difficult; the Anethans were not a warrior race, so he would have to give them a reason to fight. As Ian had done for the Thals the first time the TARDIS landed on Skaro, the war-ravaged home planet of the Daleks. The Doctor, however, decided to cross that bridge when he came to it and concentrated on figuring out where Teka and Sopea - and Meridda if at all possible - would be safest. There was no question of them joining the battle, not because they were female but because they were too valuable to risk losing - not to mention that Sopea was far too young to fight.

Of course, the safest place of all was inside the TARDIS; once the doors were secured, it was virtually impossible for an intruder to break in. But the TARDIS was still surrounded by the force-field which Vaak had set up earlier, which ruled it out as a refuge for the time being. But the Doctor decided to dismiss the issue for the moment; it was all academic unless he could find Teka and Sopea before the Sontarans did something horrible to them. So he drew himself up to his full height and told the Anethans to "come on".

* * *

"Stop in the name of the Glorious Sontaran Army!"

The Doctor regarded the Sontaran guard closely. He was typical of his species, short and squat with, judging by the way he had drawn himself up to his full height, a overinflated opinion of himself. Not for the first time, the Doctor thought the Sontarans had a major Napoleon complex; it was hard to think of a more appropriate expression. Somehow, he would have to get the Sontaran away from the entrance and it didn't look as though the clone warrior was going to budge any time soon. Nonetheless, the Doctor had to try.

"Ah, good afternoon," he said, attempting a disarming smile though he doubted it would work. "Or is it evening now? I'm sorry to bother you, only I've been rather busy and I've rather lost track of time. I don't suppose you could be a good chap, nip inside and check the time on one of the palace clocks. I'm told Queen Teka has a rather magnificent timepiece in the royal chambers." He had seen the clock in question, a mantel clock made from a wood similar to mahogany, when he, Adric and the Anethan Royal Family took refuge in Seth and Teka's quarters. It had been a wedding present from the late King Aigus, though the Doctor didn't know that.

But the Sontaran was not so easily distracted. "I am Sergeant Stran of the Glorious Sontaran Army," he retorted. "I should be fighting the advancing Rutan forces, not degrading myself with menial tasks like guarding this hovel. And, for your information, the female called Teka is no longer queen of this planet."

Hearing Stran's words, the Doctor and Seth exchanged worried glances. Teka was meant to be pretending to co-operate with the Sontarans, acting the role of a puppet queen, stalling them until the Doctor could organise a resistance force among the Anethans. If what Stran said was true, it could only mean something had gone wrong - seriously wrong.


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

Time was even shorter than the Doctor had feared. From what Stran had said, Teka had either made a slip which had given the game away or someone had betrayed her. And, apart from himself and Seth, the only people who knew she was pretending to co-operate with the Sontarans were Meridda and Adric. But he had no time to think about what might have happened; the important thing right now was getting into the palace before it was too late. First, however, they would have to get Stran away from the entrance.

"Use your sonic screwdriver!" Seth whispered.

But the Doctor shook his head. "Not this time - I've got a better idea. Come on."

Stran's military instincts told him that the Doctor and the Anethans must be up to something. He may only be a low-ranked Sergeant, but he was still a Sontaran and that meant he saw himself as militaristically and physically superior to the humanoids in front of them. He was, to use the humanoid expression, "itching for a good scrap", not that there had been much chance of that on this mission. He was not one of the Sontarans who had been sent to Aneth to assassinate the Doctor, but he could not pass up a chance to kill someone. He raised his gun and prepared to fire.

Before he could do so, however, the Doctor and the Anethans were retreating round the side of the palace. He fired anyway to release his frustration, growling as he promised himself that, the next time he fired his gun, he would make sure it had a target. Like all Sontarans, he lived to fight, to kill; to do so brought an honour that was exceeded only by death on the battlefield. With their ability to create clones at the rate of a million every four seconds, the Sontaran race could afford to adopt such a philosophy. They could sustain heavy losses without it causing too great a dent in their numbers; unfortunately, this attitude gave them a certain contempt for "weaker" races.

* * *

The Doctor had started tinkering with the VID, as Seth, Neron and the others watched in astonishment. None of the Anethans had any idea what the Doctor was up to, nor how it was going to help them deal with the Sontarans. A device which imitated people's voices was not much use when you were faced with a creature which lived only to fight.

"It's all quite simple really," the Doctor replied when Seth asked him what he was doing. "Sontarans never disobey a direct command from a superior, military intelligence and all that." He quickly showed Seth the modifications he had made to the VID, modifications he hoped would enable him to distract Stran long enough for his party to slip into the palace. "Now," he added as he prepared to put the device on his head, "I'll just send Stran on a little wild goose chase - or rather Vaak will . . ." With that, he placed the VID on his head and began to speak into the microphone. His voice changed immediately, taking on the clipped tones of a Sontaran, just as Lero's voice had taken on Adric's youthful tones.

"Sergeant Stran," he said. And, thanks to the modifications he had made to the VID, his words were transmitted directly to Stran's communicator. "This is Commander Vaak. You are to report to me outside my ship immediately."

"Sir, your orders were to guard the palace no matter what."

The Doctor, however, had anticipated this response and was ready for it. "Those orders have been rescinded! You will report to my ship now or I will have you shot for insubordination!" He knew from past experience that no Sontaran would dare to disobey a direct command from a superior officer, especially if that command was backed up with a threat of execution. As a result, many Sontarans displayed a level of obedience that, while not quite as fanatical as that displayed by the Daleks, was not far off it. And the Doctor was now turning that trait to his own advantage.

"Yes, Sir!" Stran clicked his heels, then marched off in the direction of Vaak's ship, where he thought his Commander would be waiting for him. The Doctor watched him go, waiting until he was out of site before emerging from his hiding place and beckoning to the small group of Anethans.

"It's all right - he'll be gone for a while. Which should give us the time we need. Come on."

* * *

With Stran out of the way, it was easy for the Doctor and his party to slip into the palace. Now, all they had to do was find Teka before the Sontarans did something terrible to her, not to mention that they were likely to do the same to those they had been holding hostage to ensure her co-operation. And then there was Adric; if the Sontarans had harmed him in any way, the Doctor was going to take very severe measures, measures so severe that he didn't even know what they were yet.

"Doctor," Seth said, glancing round to make sure no Sontarans were nearby, "hadn't we better find Teka?"

"Well, where are they likely to be holding her?" the Doctor asked. Then, before Seth could reply, he answer his own question. "If I know the Sontarans - and I regret to say I do - they'll be keeping her locked up somewhere, somewhere she can't escape from. And I'd bet a whole bag of Jelly Babies they've stepped up security in the dungeons since our last escape."

"So?"

The Doctor looked Seth full in the face. "So we're going to find her and get her out of there. Just as soon as we've freed the Sontarans' other prisoners. Come on." Of course, there was still the matter of the hymetusite bomb, but he knew Seth would be more concerned with Teka right now. But, if he could somehow mobilise the Anethans, there might be a way of stopping the bomb, not that it was going to be easy. For one thing, Stran was bound to find out that he had been deceived and, when he did, he was certain to come seeking revenge; his honour would have to be restored and the only way a Sontaran could do that was through combat.

* * *

Sure enough, Stran had arrived outside Vaak's ship to find no sign of his Commander. He knew this was where Vaak had told him to report, but Vaak was nowhere in sight. And no Sontaran Commander would order a subordinate to report somewhere, then not be present at the designated location. Which meant either Vaak had been unable to make the rendezvous or Stran had been deceived. And he knew the latter was far more likely.

Stran growled to himself. There was no doubt in his mind who had done the deceiving, who had tricked him into deserting his post. That perfidious Doctor! He must have got hold of the VID somehow; there was no other way he (or whoever had sent the fake message) could have imitated Vaak's voice so convincingly. And the Doctor had no doubt slipped into the palace while he, Stran, was distracted, along with the Anethans who accompanied him. In that case, there was only one thing he could do.

He would make them pay for this insult to his honour. He might not be part of the squad sent to Aneth to assassinate the Doctor, but, like any Sontaran, he could not allow anyone to get away with dishonouring him. To a Sontaran, restoring one's personal honour took presidence over all other considerations, except a direct order from a Battalion Leader. And, since it had not been General Stulve who ordered him to guard the palace, it would simply be a matter of finding the Doctor and his party and making sure none of them lived long enough to deceive anyone else.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Doctor and his party had found their way to the banqueting hall where the Sontarans had been holding their hostages. A quick blast from the sonic screwdriver put the Sontarans guards temporarily out of action and the Doctor turned his attention to the Anethans, none of whom had moved. "Well, don't just sit there," he told them. "Get out while you've got the chance!"

"But what about . . .?" a middle-aged Anethan woman asked, nodding towards one of the neutralised Sontarans.

"Oh, they'll be out for a while yet," the Doctor replied. "Which gives us time to discuss our next move." He frowned as he looked at the assembled hostages; there were enough people in this room to make a small army, even though he knew the Anethans were not a warlike people. However, the Sontarans were and that meant the only way the Anethans could hope to rid themselves of the invaders was to fight back. They had already suffered at the hands of the Skonnons and the Nimon, forced to send seven of their young people as a tribute each year. And, unless they could be persuaded to take action against the Sontarans, they would suffer at the hands of another race of conquerors.

Recalling how he had persuaded Neron and his fishermen to join forces with him and Seth, the Doctor began his attempt to marshall the Anethans. "People of Aneth, lend me your ears!" A phrase borrowed from Earth literature, but it suited his purposes. "Once more your world is threatened by hostile forces which seek only to make war. You have chosen the path of peace, but, if you want to continue down that path, you must stand up for yourselves! Fight back against the Sontarans!" As he had done while making his speech to the ragtag band of rebels on the planet where he had encountered the Great Vampire, he punched the air to emphasise his words.

"But why should we risk our lives for your sake?" asked the woman who had spoken before.

In response, the Doctor strode purposefully over to Meridda, who was looking after Sopea. He took the child out of her arms and held her up for all the Anethans to see. "I'm not asking you to do it for my sake," he told them. "But for your own. And for the sake of children like little Sopea here. Take a look at this little girl - this is what you're fighting for!" Though he knew how Seth felt about the subject, the Doctor decided it was time to put the young man's heroic reputation to good use. "And with her father, the great hero of Aneth, on our side, how can we lose?! Now, who's with me?!"

The Doctor waited, hoping against hope that his speech had convinced at least some of the Anethans to fight. Sometimes, words were not enough.

* * *

In the end, most of the people in the room stepped forward to stand beside the Doctor. The only exception was Meridda, but the Doctor had not expected her to step forward anyway; she had Sopea to consider and could ill-afford to risk her life fighting the Sontarans. Her duty, as she saw it, was to protect the child who would one day be Queen of Aneth. Trouble was, the number of places in the palace where she and Sopea could hide was now very small and, even if she attempted to escape with the baby, it was unlikely she would get very far. She put this problem to the Doctor, the man who was doing everything he could to rally her people and drive the Sontarans away from Aneth.

"Let's get out of here first," the Doctor told her. _"Then_ we'll decide what to do. Come on." The last two words were addressed to all the Anethans: Seth, Neron and his fishermen, those the Sontarans had been using as hostages . . .

Within moments, the Doctor found himself at the head of a small army of Anethans, leading them out of the banqueting hall in which most of them had recently been held prisoner. He would have preferred to be able to barricade the Sontaran guards inside, but he had no means of doing so, not that it would have made much difference if he had. The Sontarans were so physically strong that any barrier would, at best, slow them down temporarily. All he could do was hope the guards remained knocked out for some time, though that still left him with the problem of dealing with the rest of the Sontarans.

And then there was the matter of the hymetusite mines. There was no telling how many Anethans were enslaved there, forced to assist the Sontaran war effort by extracting the highly radioactive mineral. Somehow, they would have to be freed and that would mean finding a way of getting into the mines. If the Doctor knew how the Sontarans operated, they would be forcing the Anethans to work without a break, killing off any who became too exhausted to continue. And the effects of the radiation emitted by the hymetusite would only add to the difficulties for those being forced to mine it. There was a good reason why the hymetusite Seth, Teka and the others were forced to deliver to Skonnos was held in protective spheres.

But, from what the Doctor had been able to gather, the hymetusite was central to the Sontarans' plans. If the mines could be secured, the Sontarans would be unable to obtain any more of the radioactive mineral. "Which still leaves us with the problem of getting rid of the hymetusite that's already been mined," the Doctor thought out loud.

"How are we going to do that?" asked Seth.

"Blow it up," the Doctor replied. "Launch it into space." He grinned, recalling how he and Sarah Jane had once sabotaged one of the Daleks' plans by substituting bags of sand for bags of parrinium. "Replace it with something else. I'll figure something out - come on." But dealing with the hymetusite was only part of the problem; there was still the matter of getting the Sontarans off Aneth and making sure they stayed away from the planet in future.

Not to mention that he still didn't know what the Sontarans had done with Adric. But, if they had harmed the boy in any way, the Doctor was going to take very severe measures, measures which would always certainly involve blows to a few probic vents. The Doctor may have been a pacifist by nature, but there was only one language the Sontarans understood: the language of war. Their endless war against the Rutans had gone on for so long that neither side remembered what they were fighting about. And neither side was prepared to broker a peace deal; all they were interested in was finding some means of gaining the upper hand, no matter who got in their way.

* * *

In the meantime, the Doctor turned his attention to making sure Meridda and Sopea would not get caught in the crossfire. They would have to hide somewhere the Sontarans would never think of looking and the number of possible options looked decidedly limited. "The royal chambers again?" Seth suggested. But the Doctor shook his head.

"Too risky. The moment the Sontarans realise their hostages have escaped, they'll be searching the whole palace. But if we can get Meridda and Sopea out of the palace . . ." He paused, then added: "I think we'll need to create a diversion . . . Ah, Jamie McCrimmon, where are you when I need you?" The young Scotsman had been an expert at creating diversions; back on Dulkis, he and a young Dulcian named Cully had teamed up to sabotage the Dominators' attempts to drill through the planet's crust. But Jamie wasn't the Doctor's companion any more.

"What are you talking about?" asked Seth, who had never met any of the Doctor's companions apart from Romana and Adric.

"Oh, just thinking aloud about someone I used to know. It's a terrible habit of mine." The Doctor shook his head to dismiss thoughts of Jamie from his mind. "Never mind that - we've got Sontarans to deal with." He turned to Neron. "Right, I want you to mobilise these people . . ." He gestured towards the former hostages. ". . .into some sort of fighting force. Do whatever you can to slow the Sontarans down, OK? That should buy us the time we need to find Meridda and Sopea somewhere safe." But, as he spoke, it occurred to him that the only safe place on Aneth right now was inside the TARDIS; if Meridda and Sopea took refuge there, the Sontarans would be unable to get at them. Or at least that was the theory. The trouble was, the TARDIS was still surrounded by Vaak's force field, so he would have to shut that down before anyone could get inside.

The Sontarans, the hymetusite bomb, the Anethans enslaved, the force field around the TARDIS . . . The Doctor's mind jumped from one to the other. They were all problems that demanded his attention, but he hoped that, by finding a way to deal with one, he would also be able to deal with the others. But which problem should he deal with first? No, which problem _could_ he deal with first? And where were the Sontarans keeping Teka and Adric?

In fact, the same question had just occurred to Seth. "Doctor, what about Teka and Adric?"

"Well, unless they've already killed them, the Sontarans must be holding them prisoner somewhere," the Doctor replied. And the most likely place, he realised, was in the dungeons. So, assuming it wasn't already too late, he and Seth would have to find a way of getting into the dungeons and getting Teka and Adric out. And, knowing the Sontarans, they wouldn't have left the dungeons unguarded, especially after people had already escaped from them. That meant he and Seth would have to find a way of dealing with any Sontarans who might be on guard. But how? The VID again? No, it was unlikely that such a trick would work a second time; Stran must have discovered the ruse by now and reported back to Vaak. And that meant the Sontarans would have taken steps to make sure their communicators couldn't pick up any more unauthorised transmissions. Not to mention that they would be aware that one of their own devices had been turned against them.

Just as the Doctor was reflecting on the ruthless military efficiency of the Sontaran race, he and his party found themselves face-to-face with six Sontarans, all of whom had their guns raised.


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"Are you the welcoming committee?" the Doctor asked, grinning disarmingly at the six Sontarans.

Their faces were concealed behind their helmets, so it was impossible to tell if any of them grinned back, though the Doctor doubted it. In any case, Sontaran faces were not made for grinning, so it was probably just as well. The six of them had their guns raised and were aiming them at the small group of humanoids. And, if the Doctor knew how the Sontaran mind worked, they were all itching to pull the trigger. He'd already found himself on the wrong end of a Sontaran blaster once today, so he was hardly eager for a second dose, not least because the thing which had saved his life last time was no longer in his possession.

"Silence!" one of them barked, keeping his blaster trained on the Doctor. "You're all under arrest! Including that Anethan half-form," he added, pointing to Sopea with his free hand. "Now, move it!" His tone of voice left no doubt that the best course of action would be to do as ordered; Sontarans, like the Daleks and the Cybermen, did not make idle threats.

Nonetheless, the Doctor tried to stall him in the hope that an opportunity to escape might be forthcoming. "I see your point," he said. "But couldn't you at least do the done thing and tell us what we're supposed to have done? Or are you too eager to get back to your endless war against the Rutans? They were doing pretty well last I heard." Not that he supported either side in the Sontaran-Rutan war; indeed, from what he had seen of the two races, they had more in common than they would have admitted. He recalled the Rutan he had encountered at Fang Rock; it had been just as willing to die for the Rutan Empire as the Sontarans were willing to die for theirs. Unfortunately, the things the Sontarans and the Rutans had in common were the very things which had kept them at war with each other for thousands of years.

"Very well," the Sontaran who had spoken before said, still aiming his blaster at the Doctor. "You are all charged with obstructing the Glorious Sontaran Army, in addition to dishonouring one of our Sergeants by tricking him into deserting his post. And the only way honour can be restored is through your deaths!" He nodded curtly to his fellow Sontarans, who raised their blasters and prepared to fire on the small group of humanoids. Before they could do so, however, the Doctor gave his sonic screwdriver a quick squeeze, causing it to emit the pulse of sound which he knew temporarily disabled Sontarans.

As the six Sontarans staggered about, then collapsed unconscious, the Doctor urged the Anethans forward. They had to get out to the courtyard so that the Doctor could disable the force-field around the TARDIS, allowing Meridda and Sopea to take refuge inside. After that, he and Seth had to get back into the palace and find a way of getting down to the dungeons to free Teka and Adric. Not to mention that they still had to deal with the Sontarans . . . The Sontarans! As a sudden thought occurred to the Doctor, he took the blaster out of the hand of the nearest Sontaran and handed it to Seth. "Take this - you might need it."

As Seth took the blaster, he looked at the Doctor doubtfully. He had handled a gun before; while in the Complex on Skonnos, he had used the co-pilot's blaster to temporarily stun Soldeed. But he had seen enough of the Sontarans to know they were much harder to stun; the blast would have to be aimed at the vents in the backs of their necks, the one part of their anatomy the Sontarans were careful not to expose to an enemy. Not only that, but it seemed the Doctor wasn't going to take a blaster for himself. "But what about you?" Seth asked, looking at the gun in his hand, then at the Doctor.

"I never carry firearms," the Doctor replied. He was prepared to use guns if he had to, but only as a last resort. "Come on," he added before Seth could say anything else. "We've got a force-field to disable."

And, with that, he led the small party of Anethans out into the courtyard.

* * *

The TARDIS was still where the Doctor and Adric had left it when they arrived on Aneth. After checking the surrounding area for any lurking Sontarans, the Doctor beckoned to the Anethans, who stood staring at the blue box which looked like nothing on their planet. Even Seth, the only Anethan present who had met the Doctor before today, had never seen the TARDIS. "What is it?" he asked, looking curiously at the box which had suddenly appeared in the courtyard. As far as he could see, it was nothing more than an ordinary box, but where had it come from?

"It's my home," the Doctor replied. "Or at least it has been for the last few centuries." As he spoke, he thought of all the adventures he had had since leaving Gallifrey, of the companions who had travelled with him. Humans for the most part, though he had had a few non-human companions, including Adric. In fact, though he didn't yet know it, the TARDIS crew would soon be more diverse than it had ever been before, as he (in a new incarnation) found himself with three companions from three different planets. For now, though, he was more concerned with making sure Meridda and Sopea were out of harm's way and that meant disabling the force-field which Vaak had set up around the TARDIS.

Finding the device which powered the force-field took a matter of moments; it was the same type of device Styre had used to power the force-field which trapped Sarah Jane, a metallic box. And, as on that occasion, a quick zap with the sonic screwdriver soon put paid to the device and, with it, the invisible barrier. The Doctor checked to make sure the force-field was indeed down, then unlocked the doors to the TARDIS and pushed them open.

"Hello, old thing," he said, addressing the space-time machine directly. The TARDIS was more than just a machine; in a sense, it was alive and the Doctor had always treated it as such. He stepped inside and walked across to the console, turning to face the Anethans. Their faces bore an expression he had seen many times before: a look of disbelief that such a vast interior could be contained inside what looked like an ordinary wooden box. The Doctor smiled; everyone who wasn't a Gallifreyan reacted in more or less the same way when they first entered the TARDIS. A few moments spent gazing speechlessly as if trying to decide whether they were hallucinating, or mad, or merely seeing an optical illusion, followed by the inevitable comment about it being "bigger on the inside".

In the end, it was Seth who broke the silence. "Is this your spaceship?" Then, as the Doctor nodded in reply, he added: "But why is it so much bigger inside than outside?" In his experience, a spacecraft which was big inside tended to be big outside as well, but this was something else entirely. Anethan technology was advanced, but it was nowhere near as advanced as the technology which had produced this strange craft of the Doctor's.

"Oh, it's all a matter of Time and Relative Dimensions in Space," the Doctor replied. "TARDIS for short." Seth looked at him blankly, still none the wiser. "Look, I don't have time to explain the finer points of dimensional transcendentalism," the Doctor went on. "We've still got to get Teka and Adric out of the Sontarans' bifurcated clutches." Before Vaak and his troops do something horrible to them, he added silently. He knew from past experience that the Sontarans would do whatever it took to maintain their warped sense of honour, including killing anyone who they felt had dishonoured them. Teka had dishonoured them by pretending to act as their puppet queen, so they had deposed her and . . . The Doctor did not know what the Sontarans had planned for her, but he knew it wouldn't be pleasant.

But, whatever happened, he wanted to make sure Sopea was kept out of harm's way. And the safest place on Aneth right now was inside the TARDIS; once the doors were secured, it was virtually impossible to break in without a key. He turned his attention to Meridda, who was standing by the console, holding Sopea in her arms. "You see that lever?" he asked, pointing to one of the levers on the console. Meridda nodded. "I want you to pull it as soon as Seth and I have gone," the Doctor went on. "It will secure the TARDIS, make sure the Sontarans can't get at you and Sopea. But," he added emphatically, "don't touch that lever." He indicated the lever in question. "If you do, there's no telling where you'll end up. Or when you'll end up."

"Don't worry, Doctor," Meridda said, sensing that the Doctor was right about this strange craft being the safest place on Aneth right now. "We'll be all right. Won't we, Sopea?" she added, addressing the baby in her arms, who gurgled and reached towards the central column with the curiosity of small children all over the Universe.

* * *

Satisfied that Meridda and Sopea were out of harm's way, the Doctor and Seth hurried back towards the palace. Not only did they have to get Teka and Adric out of the Sontarans' clutches, they had to rid Aneth of the clone warriors, had to make sure the planet didn't become another outpost of the Sontaran Empire. The Sontarans were out to exploit Aneth's resources, specifically its supply of hymetusite, to aid them in their endless war against the Rutans and that, the Doctor knew, would lead to a future the planet was not meant to have. When he and Susan had visited Aneth . . . Or should that be when he and Susan _would_ visit Aneth? Time-travel sometimes made it hard to know the correct tense to use if, for example, an event had occurred in your past but in your current location's future. In any case, the Doctor remembered Aneth as a "charming" planet, but, unless the Sontarans were stopped, it would become anything but.

"Doctor," Seth said, his voice cutting through the Doctor's train of thought, "do you remember when we first met?"

"On the transport to Skonnos? What about it?"

"Well . . ." Seth paused. "Do you remember I asked you if you'd been to Aneth? And you said: "Yes, but not yet." What did you mean by that?" At the time, he had been more worried about how he was going to fulfil the mission with which Aigus had entrusted him, the mission to destroy the Nimon, and it had not occurred to him to ask any follow-up questions about the Doctor's visit to Aneth.

"Do you think you could handle it if I told you?"

Seth nodded slowly and the Doctor began to explain about the TARDIS and how he used it to travel in space and time. This meant events which had happened in his past sometimes had yet to happen in whichever present he currently occupied, or vice versa. His first visit to Aneth was one example of this. Though, as far as he was concerned, it had already happened, those events were in Aneth's future; the Anethans who were alive now would be long dead by the time his first incarnation arrived here with Susan.

When the Doctor had finished speaking, Seth frowned. "But, if you can travel in time, why don't you just go back and stop the Sontarans from landing here?"

The Doctor paused, wondering if he would be able to make Seth understand the finer points of time-travel, in particular the Law of Time which said you should not attempt to interfere with the course of history. "Because I can't cross my own timeline," he said at last. "And, even if I could, the Laws of Time prohibit me from interfering with established events. If I were to try . . ." He shook his head. "Time paradoxes are no laughing matter - and they're pretty hard to untangle too."

"So you can't go back and change what's already happened?" As he spoke, Seth thought of Teka. From what the Doctor was saying, if the Sontarans had harmed her in any way, there would be no way of preventing it from happening. All he could do was hope he and the Doctor found her before it was too late.

"No, but we can still put a stop to the Sontarans' plans," the Doctor replied. "Come on."

* * *

Teka and Adric had lost all track of time; they had no way of knowing how long they had been locked in the cell. Several times, Adric had suggested trying to escape, but Teka maintained that the best thing to do in this situation was to stay put. "The Doctor and Seth will get us out of here," she said, her faith in Seth as unshaken as ever. After all, he was the hero of Aneth, the one who had freed their people from the Pact which had seen many young people offered as tribute to the Nimon. The memory of the desiccated corpse she and her fellow prisoners had found in the Complex still made her shudder, especially when she recalled what Romana had said about the Nimon sucking the life force out of its victims. All that was left of the unfortunate young Anethan was an empty shell which crumbled to dust when Teka tried to touch it. And, if it hadn't been for Seth, she and the others would have suffered the same fate.

Teka had to admit that the Doctor and Romana had helped, but, as far as she was concerned, it was Seth who had defeated the Nimon, Seth who had freed the Anethans from the tyranny of the Skonnons. And she was equally certain that it would be Seth who freed herself and Adric and put a stop to the Sontarans' plans.

"Suppose they can't," Adric said, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. "Suppose the Sontarans have killed them." He didn't want to think about it, but he had already seen how eager the Sontarans were to kill - and they had already made one attempt on the Doctor's life. "Who do you think's going to rescue us then? We've got to find a way of escaping by ourselves . . ." He paused and looked at the keypad which operated the door lock. "Teka, I cracked the code on that other door, so I should be able to do it again. Then we could get out of here and . . ."

"And get ourselves killed by the Sontarans?" Teka asked, interrupting Adric in mid-sentence.

"And, if we don't try to escape, they'll kill us anyway," Adric pointed out. "You heard what the Sontaran who shoved you in here said. And it's my fault!" he added. "I'm the one who told them you weren't really co-operating with them. I'm sorry, but . . ." The sound of the door being unlocked from the outside cut him off and he and Teka exchanged glances as it opened to reveal Vaak standing in the corridor with two other Sontarans behind him.

The three Sontarans marched into the cell, weapons drawn and pointed directly at the two young prisoners. "Bring them." Vaak's tone as he issued orders to his underlings was as clipped as ever, the result of a lifetime as a Commander. Each Sontaran was assigned to a particular position from the moment he was cloned; there was no rising through the ranks for their race. That was the inefficient way in which humanoids organised their armies, further proof that they lacked any true military potential. And beings without military potential were expendable as far as Vaak was concerned; they were only worth keeping alive as long as they were of use to the Sontaran cause.

And Teka and Adric had outlived their usefulness.

* * *

Teka and Adric were marched out of the cell, the Sontarans' guns aimed at their backs. Neither of them dared try anything; they knew any attempt to escape would be futile. The Sontarans had been bred for war; from the moment they were cloned, they were sent to fight in their endless war against the Rutans. And they were not above killing anyone who got in their way or who impugned their sense of honour. Add to that their tremendous strength, the result of being from a high gravity planet, and there were few who could stand up to them. What chance did Teka and Adric, a young Anethan woman and an Alzarian boy, neither of whom were armed, have against these clone warriors?

Not much. But, even now, Teka's faith in Seth remained unshaken. Even as she and Adric were marched into the throne-room and forced to their knees, she was certain that he would come and save them both. After all, he had saved her from the Nimon's larder, not to mention that he had freed the Anethans from the Pact with Skonnos.

Vaak marched over to the prisoners, halting directly in front of them. "You have brought dishonour to the Glorious Sontaran Army," he told Teka, looking at her in a way which let her know that he had power over her. "And, for honour to be restored, both you and that brat of the Doctor's . . ." He nodded towards Adric. ". . . must die!" He turned to the two Sontarans who had accompanied him. "Take aim . . ."

Teka and Adric exchanged glances and closed their eyes, bracing themselves for the moment when Vaak gave the order to fire. When that happened, it would only be a matter of seconds before each of them was cut down by a Sontaran blaster.


End file.
